Let Down
by JMK758
Summary: Jubilee Eastergaard seems to have had everything to live for, so why did she end her life so spectacularly?
1. Shattered

This is my twenty-eighth NCIS Mystery and the eighth of my Third Season. The list of stories got so extensive I moved it, with summaries, to my profile.  
>There are numerous stand-alone and spin-off stories also listed in my profile.<br>Belisarius Productions owns NCIS and the usual legal disclaimers apply. I own characters such as Samantha Sky, Rev. Siobhan (Sha-vonn) McGee and original agents.  
>This mystery unfolds in early May, two weeks after 'On the Wings of Demons'.<br>Rated T or NCis-17  
>Please Review.<p>

Let Down  
>by JMK758<br>Chapter One  
>Shattered<p>

Doctor Donald Mallard holds the night club door open before his companion as they step into the pre-dawn light. It's 0530 on Monday and after a most pleasant if lengthy Sunday evening - and night - the club is closed. Neither he nor Jordan Hampton had kept track of time, so the morning, evidenced only by the fading of stars and slight fade of darkness in the east, came as a surprise to them.

He subtly repositions the white scarf draped over his tuxedoed shoulders and she catches him at it. "You're elegant as ever."

"In your presence, my dear lady, I dare not be otherwise, else I shall simply fade into the background."

"Impossible, trust me."

He offers his arm and they slowly walk toward the lightening horizon. "While I would never presume to contradict a lady, you have already brightened this street with dazzling daylight. I am merely fortunate to bask in your glow."

Even in the dim light of too distant street lamps, Ducky sees the blush fill her face and decides it's time to desist as they continue in the direction of his two block distant Morgan.

They'd entered the Club for dinner, and yesterday's balmy temperature dropped with the descending sun and then moon, while the sun is still several minutes due in its return. Ducky doesn't particularly wish to report for work, though he does entertain the thought of spending a few more hours with the lovely woman.

Jordan's royal blue dress is elegant but hardly warm, and she runs her hands briskly over her bare arms.

"I _am _sorry, my dear," he says contritely and opens the outer and inner buttons that secure his tuxedo jacket.

She recognizes he's missed the hint. "I'm not cold for a jacket."

He's not slow to make up for it, puts his arm decorously about her waist and she snuggles closer as they continue their short walk. "Better?"

"Almost," she grants, and eases an inch closer.

"Almost?"

"My lips are cold."

He stops and she comes around before him so both his arms embrace her. "We cannot have that at all."

x

He proceeds to warm her lips, and though public displays of affection aren't in his nature, seconds tick on without indication from her that her lips are warm enough yet and he can hardly bring himself to quit.

The pitch of the screech from above rises, breaks them apart as other screams split the air. Ducky turns back the way they'd come an instant before the shriek ends in an abrupt, loud, sickening _thrump_ and scores of wet impacts pepper their faces and clothes.

The woman's ruptured body, clad only in burst pink bra and panties, lies face down in a wide splash of blood on the cement ten feet from them, her head toward the tower. Her body hit the cement full on and it's not only ruptured but visibly flattened. Blood and worse extends from the building well out into the street and for several yards to either side.

Screams continue, too strident and long for the Medical Examiners' tastes. Jordan looks down at her dress; the royal blue is dotted with red splotches and less pleasant colors. Ducky's been spared the obvious spatter, though the marks on his white scarf and the V of his crisp shirt testify to the tuxedo's black-obscured damage. A look at Ducky's face and she doesn't want to see her own.

x

They look upward and attempt to trace the path of the body as chaos reigns around them. Many people run in for a better view of the gory spectacle while others flee the prospect of more descending bodies. The Examiners don't consider them, they want to determine as quickly as possible from whence the woman had come.

Unfortunately the sheer angle upward along the tower, together with each apartment having a short and narrow individual balcony, prevents them from determining from which apartment the woman fell. However, as they look about, they find themselves in the center of a growing mass of chaotic humanity.

"You want this one?" Jordan offers, her voice haunted. It's been years since she'd witnessed a violent death and never one this extreme.

"We shall do the Gibbs / Carpenter jurisdiction waltz later, my dear. For now, I shall leave the poor woman to your care while I secure this Scene. I am a considerably more intimidating presence."

She waits until he turns to that task rather than let him see her grin.

x

Hampton steps closer to the ruptured body and hikes her dress clear of her blue high heeled slippers. To avoid stepping in blood and other bodily fluids is impossible; it covers an almost fifteen foot radius and the densest concentration immediately surrounds the visibly flattened corpse.

Hearing Ducky's authoritative voice behind her - the man can command a scene when he wills it - Jordan examines the body, shuts away emotion as she would at her dissection table and focuses upon analysis. This also helps protect her from nightmares – most of the time.

The woman's - too early to attempt to estimate age - body hit the cement full on, she saw that herself, and burst apart, which means she probably fell a minimum of three hundred feet, almost 30 stories, from the tower beside them. She's blonde, her hair perhaps less than shoulder length, and she's slim. To guess weight at this point - well, she's about average build and looks to have been between 5 9 and 5 11, the uncertainty caused by the distorting effect of going from over a hundred feet per second to full stop in zero time.

Jordan is aware, with the clinical portion of her mind whose input is all she allows to reach her at this time, that the sun slowly brightens the scene and the conversations from the growing but Ducky-controlled crowd are overrun by MPDC and ambulance sirens. She presumes the latter are for the spectators, the woman before her is in need of nothing save her ME truck.

xxx

Tony DiNozzo gets off the elevator in a jovial mood he's too willing to share with all his fellow agents, and though his voice is reasonably mellow it would vastly help his colleagues' appreciation of his good spirits if he had more than a passing knowledge of the lyrics of the song he's warbling.

Undeterred by this deficit, Tony tosses his backpack in a long arc behind his desk and turns his entry into the workspace into a soft shoe dance step.

"You are in too good a mood for our good," Ziva declares, including McGee and Palmer in her assessment as the man plops into his seat. So far as she's concerned, the man still has good reason to be somber, but his two-week grey mood has vanished a month too soon.

"'s the matter, Zee-vá? Not riding on the top of the world this Monday morning?" he quips, and punctuates the jibe with a drummer's rill of pencils upon his phone, monitor, keyboard and Mighty Mouse stapler, ending with a cymbal strike on his water glass.

"I am not riding on top of anything," she declares, oblivious to the mental image she grants him. "What have you to be so chipping over?"

"Chipper. And I've decided this weekend that life is too short to spend any more time wearing sackcloth and ashes."

"No, it isn't," McGee counters, not looking at his partner. He doesn't care what kind of weekend the man had, quite probably with Jeanne Benoit. He doesn't care.

"You may not have noticed," Ziva says, "but Gibbs is not here."

"Yeah," Tony finally notes the vacant desk and his high spirits lower, "that's not good."

"Indeed."

"Whenever we beat him in, he usually pops out of some extra-dimensional vortex and tells us to"

"Grab your gear." Tony jumps as the command comes over his partition. "Dead Marine Major in Near Northeast, Ducky's already on the scene."

"How did _Ducky _beat us to a Crime Scene?" Tony asks as he retrieves his unopened pack.

Gibbs has already rounded the corner and strides to his desk. "He spent the morning with the corpse."

His words conjure for his team four varied and equally gruesome mental images, all very quickly dispelled.

xxx

When Gibbs' blue Charger, with Ziva riding 'shotgun' and Michelle in the rear seat, pulls up to the curb seconds before the white and black MCRT truck bearing a still-too-happy DiNozzo and a by now quite thoroughly annoyed McGee, the street is a crowded, securely cordoned Crime Scene filled to bursting with MPDC units and too many news trucks even for Washington. A uniformed officer waves the agents into the zone when Gibbs displays his shield, and it seems as though half the district has come to work the spectacular scene.

Reporters, kept beyond the perimeter, are thick as sharks and twice as voracious. They'd tried to crowd the NCIS vehicles, only to be frustrated by the vehicles' admission into the 'No Reporters' land.

Gibbs has already told his team that US Marine Major Jubilee Eastergaard had quite literally fallen into their jurisdiction an hour and a half ago, but that Ducky had elected to notify him rather than a Gamma Shift team.

"By the time the police had determined that the poor woman had fallen from a patio on the 43rd floor, some five hundred fifty, five hundred sixty feet," the ME had said when he'd made the initial call, "and then ascertained that she was in NCIS' jurisdiction rather than their own, it was nearly seven o'clock and I formally relieved Doctor Hampton."

Gibbs wished he could have seen that changing of the guard.

x

Now the agents gather beside the rear on their blue and white truck, quite surrounded by Metro units. Ducky, a few yards forward, stands with two uniformed officers within the yellow cordoned zone, several feet from a large, once white sheet.

"Something's cosmically wrong with the universe," Tony declares as Jimmy removes a gurney from the blue, white and red ME truck several car lengths ahead of them, "when even Palmer beats us to a Crime Scene."

"Well technically," Michelle points out with a honeyed smile, "since I rode with Agent Gibbs while you drove the truck, _both _Palmers got here before you."

He's about to return a particularly devastating riposte when he catches Gibbs 'get-to-work' look and reaches for his Crime Scene duffle that contains, among other things, his sketch pad and set of pencils. Looking at the white sheet covered lump on the sidewalk within the wide cordon, he recalls 'forty-three floors' and doesn't want to sketch this body. For that matter, he'd as soon not take or look at the pictures.

x

Gibbs leads the way under the yellow tape that isolates much of the sidewalk on the left side of the street and approaches Ducky. The tuxedoed man stands before the reddened sheet, outside the wide spatter zone.

"About time you got here," Ducky says, his attempt at gallows humor, but his eyes say he doesn't find his own dig at his friend's characteristic impatience humorous.

"Caught in traffic," Gibbs excuses himself as only the boss may.

"Nice penguin outfit," DiNozzo can't help but interject, "though the blood does detract from the image."

"Yes, well, after it's cleaned I shall lend it to you for your next date."

DiNozzo mentally cringes, recalls the day he'd been obliged to borrow Ducky's coveralls and the adage about plowboys not drawing on gunslingers.

x

"What've you got, Duck?" Gibbs is in no mood for banter and wishes DiNozzo hadn't abandoned his two-week-old somber persona.

"When Metro determined that the poor woman came from the 43rd floor, Jord– Doctor Hampton remained with the body while I went up to obtain her identity and further information. We quickly ascertained that she was Marine Major Jubilee Eastergaard. It was then that I telephoned you."

"That was nearly seven, what time did she fall?"

"Doctor Hampton and I left Alberto's, 1 block west, at five-thirty. I should say the lady fell between five thirty-five and forty."

"Where's Jordan?" he asks, intentionally using the woman's name to point up Ducky's unnecessary formality. He gets a chagrined smile; it's _been _over a year that the MEs have been 'keeping company'.

"She is upstairs, securing the scene."

"From _Metro_?" Tony asks.

"She knows how seriously I take my Crime Scene examinations."

Gibbs gives a silent signal to DiNozzo and McGee, who step gingerly between the still tacky spatters as they move in on the body. Considering it in quite capable hands, he's not anxious to view the body this shortly after breakfast and he returns his attention to Ducky. "What about the medical one?" Gibbs knows Ducky's even more particular about these; he and the woman had met over a follow-up to an autopsy.

"Well, she was alive before she hit the street; she screamed all the way down, that is what alerted us and everyone else on the block." With just a shift of his eyes he indicates the throng of people kept at bay by Metro Officers and the wide ranging yellow tape. Gibbs suspects that many onlookers haven't moved since the doctor had herded them back from the body two hours ago.

"I sympathize, Anthony," Ducky says, drawing his attention to the men behind him. DiNozzo has his sketchbook out and is probably wondering where to begin. "If this were a television program the actress in question would be made up with bruises and lacerations - but probably still well coiffed hair. Reality, however, is an unforgiving medium."

x

"David, Palmer, work the crowd." Gibbs is glad the onlookers haven't been dispersed; it doesn't pay to send their eyewitness away yet. He gives by far the most credence to Ducky's account but it doesn't hurt to have more viewpoints, provided those viewpoints make sense, not always a foregone conclusion when dealing with witnesses. He knows that with the body uncovered for McGee to photograph, no one will leave. The woman wears fragments of a once pink set of underwear, but even a glance is enough to show that she's not as high as her body ought to be. 'Rib cage was probably crushed when she hit,' he decides.

"I shall have to see, when I get her back to Autopsy," Ducky finishes his earlier interrupted answer, "if any other factor contributed to her demise."

Gibbs wishes him - and Abby - luck with that. The Major's 'bodily fluids', to put it gently, aren't all dried yet and cover more than fifteen feet about her, from the side of the building well out into the street, and droplets not visible to the eye have certainly traveled further.

The last time they'd dealt with a long fall, Ducky had classed it as particularly sad, such a long moment to contemplate one's fate and no chance to change the outcome.

At 43 floors, this one's far worse.

xx

Access to the tower, which goes by the pretentious name of 'Valhalla', isn't challenged by the grey suited Security Officers at the front desk. Neither man attempts to get their names; the younger man hasn't gotten all the color back into his face, and on occasions like this Law Enforcement holds unrestricted right-of-way. Metro uniforms account for only a portion of the men and women visible through the lobby's glass door and multiple windows that look back to the street, and the black NCIS Field jackets join the mix.

Gibbs glances back at the wall filled with windows. The body landed a few feet to the right of the door, blood and worse spatter the closest windows. It will have to remain there for quite some time to come.

"Which of you was on duty when she fell?" he asks the two guards.

"I was," the younger man says.

"John Korven," the older one introduces himself. "I'm the Field Supervisor, I was called in after this started."

The younger finally realizes Gibbs is staring at him. "Oh, er, Bob Hillman."

"We'll need your statement. I'll have an agent here shortly to take it."

Hillman, apparently about to say something about his shift ending soon, sees in Gibbs' eyes the wisdom of keeping that observation to himself.

"How many guards are on duty?"

"Five days, two overnight; one at the desk, the other on roving patrol, hourly rotations," Korven tells them.

"And when the woman fell?" Gibbs asks Hillman.

"Er, Noble was on 14."

xx

Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee, the latter two carrying black duffle bags full of equipment, each sign the Crime Scene Access Log with their names and ID numbers and step past the guarding police officer into 4306, immediately to the left of the elevator. There are five widely spaced doors on each side of the long corridor, sequential numbers paired opposite one another, 1 through 6 left, the remaining four right, ten large apartments on the floor, the front or southerly facing apartments all equipped with balconies that line the entire front of the building, offering a spectacular view of the city. They suppose the rear set offer as good a northerly view.

The first room they enter, past a kitchenette to their left, is a living room that their bullpen would fit into. There's a hallway to their right that leads past a bathroom into the bedroom, and another closed door to their left. Beyond couch to the left flanked by two easy chairs, coffee table before the couch and plasma television entertainment system at the right, a wide, glass-doored patio overlooks miles of DC.

Across the wide street and to the right, an equally tall building partially cuts off the spectacular view, but with what's left of center they can see the Navy Yard on the horizon beyond the Capital Mall.

On the coffee table before the long white couch are a bowl of cashew nuts, another of small candies and, most prominently, an open laptop computer facing the couch.

x

A uniformed Sergeant crosses the room to them and brief introductions are made with Sergeant Dave Lewiston. "You'll want to see this," he says, indicating the computer. Rather than touch it, the four men line into the space between couch and table.

The computer and keyboard have evidently been dusted for fingerprints; powder grains and void spaces where tape has done its job abound, but what's interesting shines black upon the top of the white page.

'I can't endure this anymore. I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way.'


	2. Suicide

Chapter Two  
>Suicide?<p>

"Looks like you came a long way with lots of equipment for a very easy investigation," a black Metro PD officer says from the other side of the table. "Not a lot of mystery here. She jumped."

DiNozzo has grown tired of repeating that "NCIS investigates all suicides as homicides until proven otherwise."

"What proves it's a suicide?"

"A hell of a lot more than this," Gibbs declares.

"Boss," McGee cuts in, bends low before the machine, "the battery's running low and this hasn't been saved; no file name up top, it's still only in RAM."

"Save and bag." Gibbs knows the precious clue is now in good hands. McGee, having sounded sufficiently aggravated that no one else seemed to have been concerned that the computer wasn't plugged in, uses the ends of two pens to input the commands. Once he saves the file, he leaves the incriminating message on the screen but closes the laptop's lid, pulls from the black case beside the table a black wire, finds a socket beside the couch and plugs in the unit.

"Even in hibernation the computer uses power, but I don't want to turn it off because it might need a password on restart. I'll bring the battery up to full power before sealing the bag, and the file will be ready to review at headquarters."

"You do what you have to, just keep it safe."

"Wonder why she didn't have it plugged in," DiNozzo says. If the battery had died, the note would be gone forever.

"How much power was left?" Gibbs asks McGee.

"The status bar was up, battery had less than one quarter charge. Depending on how good it was, maybe two hours max."

There's no point berating the uniformed officers, one does not add to or change a Crime Scene, but in this case one could make a reasonable case for erring, after pictures were taken, on the side of caution.

The note, now a permanent record, will help not only their investigation but Ducky's psychological autopsy, but the tone in which Eastergaard's final words are presented is ominous.

Gibbs doesn't wonder why Ducky, who'd spent considerable time here, hadn't mentioned the note. Ducky knows he prefers to find his clues without previous input or interpretation, not that the man would offer any.

Confident that this clue is secure, he silently directs DiNozzo to let him out of the limited space so he may search for others.

x

Doctor Jordan Hampton stands in the short hallway that leads to bath and bedroom, close enough to be available but far enough out of the way to let the police do their jobs.

Gibbs won't tell DiNozzo to collect everything the officers have gathered; he knows to do this. Instead he steps up to the woman, notes her spattered royal blue dress but clean face and arms. Ducky's black tuxedo had been spared the obvious damage, though it too will need a thorough cleaning.

"What can you tell me?"

"What hasn't Ducky told you?" she counters quietly.

He almost gives it up, the only things Ducky hadn't reported were the obvious. "Was she pushed or did she jump?"

Hampton considers carefully. "I didn't see more than the last half-second, but she's face down with head _toward _the building, so I'm not going to commit myself. Air resistance over 43 floors can do different things, but most suicides I've worked tend to face away from their point of origin. I'm not saying anything more until she's examined."

"You came up with Metro?"

"Yes."

"That sliding door," he indicates the glass patio door between the two floor-to-ceiling windows that turn the entire fourth wall into an impressive - or dizzying - vista, "was it open or closed?"

"Closed."

x

He leaves her and waves to DiNozzo to join him at the glass door. The glass and handle have already been subjected to powder and tape, so he uses his pen on the handle to slide the door aside. A cool mid-May breeze immediately fills the living room, yet there are no protests. When they step outside, Gibbs notes no powder on this side of the door's handle and he slides the door shut just as carefully as he'd opened it.

The cemented patio is covered along two-thirds of its width by Astroturf and there's a folding web lawn chair to their right and a long reclining beach chair to the left. When Gibbs looks over the three plus foot tall wrought iron rail he sees, far below, that Ducky and Palmer roll the black body bagged gurney toward the blue, white and red ME truck. The brownish circle left behind looks like someone threw a huge paint balloon from the balcony.

DiNozzo uses an optical measuring scanner. "How high?" Gibbs asks.

"Five hundred fifty eight feet." He cringes, perhaps imagining the woman's drop.

By their black and white caps and jackets Gibbs can pick out Ziva and Michelle as they work different sections of the crowd on the perimeter of the cordoned sidewalk. The police haven't dispersed the mob and he doubts many would have left until the Examiners secured their burden within the truck.

He turns to DiNozzo but the man's looking downward to their right. There's a familiar intensity to the man's gaze; he glances at the webbed chair, then back. "Got something?"

"Maybe." DiNozzo points to their left where the reclining chair rests upon the Astroturf. "That one hasn't been moved in ... years." Dirt, the detritus of dusty rain, coats the lines where metal meets turf.

Gibbs turns to the smaller folding chair and finds the alignment changed by over three inches on the left side, yet it angles back to the original position on the right. The rear rail is misaligned on both sides, and there's an indentation where the rails have flattened the original location of the chair's base. He turns to DiNozzo.

"I know, boss. Camera."

"Good to see you're learning your job." But there's no iron in this; a room full of MPDC officers hadn't reported the chair's slight displacement. He looks over the rail from this new position. Not ... quite right. "Have McGee bring the laser. I want to know _exactly _where Eastergaard went over. But first we dust this rail."

x

The test reveals an interesting conundrum: DiNozzo's use of the laser range finder, a device that measures distance to the minutest fraction of an inch, identifies the most likely spot from where Eastergaard supposedly threw herself from the balcony. It's close to the middle of the long rail, an area almost devoid of hand and fingerprints. There are some, to be sure, but they are particularly sparse, and there are none at the point perpendicular to Eastergaard's landing spot.

The areas of greatest density are those closest to the yard chairs, on the underside of the rail where they're protected from rain. There the prints overlap into a virtually indecipherable jumble no one envies Abby Sciuto having to interpret. Having no evidence to the contrary - yet - Gibbs allows the working theory that Eastergaard uses those spots to lower or boost herself into and out of the chairs.

xx

When Gibbs and DiNozzo return from the patio with the fingerprints and measurements, McGee holds one of the black duffle bags that'd been set out of the way in a bare corner of the room.

"I was just getting the FLS," McGee answers the unspoken question he reads in Gibbs' eyes.

"Find something?"

"Bed's been slept in, just checking to see if anyone helped with the mess." He leads the men into the lit though windowless bedroom and closes the door. The bed is indeed disturbed somewhat more thoroughly than a single person might accomplish, no matter how restless her slumber nor how rapid her rising. McGee turns on the portable Forensic Light Source device and DiNozzo uses his pen to push down the switch beside the door.

A turn of the dial from the most recent setting and after a few moments of advancing through the spectrum the correct frequency is found; the blue light makes the sheets and rumpled blanket glow with distinct patterns. "Well, can't tell how old they are, but Major Eastergaard has definitely had company."

"Bag and tag. Abby will tell us how old these are," Gibbs says as he switches on the overhead light. "When you're done with that, see what else you can find in this room."

"Right, boss."

xxx

It's over an hour later when the agents return to the lobby and approach the grey suited Security Officer. He's not the same man they saw earlier, a fact that gives Gibbs a shot of aggravation akin to Abby's long gulp of caffeine. The discrete rectangular gold bar pinned above his jacket pocket gives this man's name and security company.

"Officer Wilson," Gibbs greets him, "where are Hillman and Korven?"

Wilson shakes his head. "The police have them in the Security Office, along with Fred Noble. I'm to hold the other four officers here when they report in until another Supervisor arrives."

Gibbs knows these people are in for a more interesting morning than they've probably had in years. Since Noble was on 14 when Eastergaard went over her rail and Hillman was at the front desk, he'll focus on Hillman's report but wants to get such evidence as they have to NCIS without much delay. "We need to see your logs and videos for this morning."

There's no need to overawe him, the man's about twenty and looks almost as grey as his suit. Whatever he saw upon arrival has evidently shaken him. "Yes, sir. Mister Korven and the Management Company said to give you whatever you want."

"Good, then we'll have a look at your log books and take the tape for since last evening."

Wilson pulls from behind the desk two large books, the security log and signature book, and while the agents examine them he ejects a CD from his console and puts it into a plastic jewel case. "You'll have to sign for this," he says.

Gibbs ignores the advice, logging such things is S.O.P. "These all the people who came and went this morning?" Gibbs asks. Since 0000 hours until Eastergaard landed, only five signatures appear on the day's sheet.

"People come and go all morning, but only visitors have to sign the book. I've been here almost two years; I know most of the residents on sight."

"Anyone visit the 43rd floor?" The elevators can be seen from the desk.

"I don't know, not since I came on, but..."

Gibbs already knows the 'but'. Just because someone signs that they're going to a particular floor is no guarantee they will do so, or that they won't detour later.

"Visitors have to be announced?" They'd better be.

"Yes, but after they're off the elevator, they're out of sight. They could go-"

"Anywhere."

x

Gibbs only interviews Security Officers Hillman and Noble long enough to be certain they have nothing to add to what the agents already know. If he determines he needs more information, he knows how to find them.

He'd sent Ziva and Michelle upstairs to interview Eastergaard's neighbors, they'd returned in record time. The people on the 43rd floor have either already left for work or pretended not to be home. He'll send the women or others back this evening unless circumstances make it unnecessary.

xxx

It's eleven eighteen before the five agents are back in the bullpen and DiNozzo makes the first report. "Major Jubilee Eastergaard," he declares, pressing the plasma screen's remote control button which brings up the official ID photo of the blonde woman in formal blue Marine uniform, "hails from Savannah, Georgia - as you may have guessed - where she enlisted in the Corps on her eighteenth birthday. She's now 41 so I'm guessing she's 'Career' military."

"Good guess, DiNozzo."

"I thought so." But he dares not be too smug. "Her father, General Nathanial Eastergaard - deceased - may have been an influence on her."

"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Ziva asks in passable imitation, making her boss smile.

Tony's eyes show his opinion of the Mossad officer's cut off. "As I was saying before I was so _lewd_ly interrupted, Major Jubilee Eastergaard graduated with Honors and went on to a meteoric career that saw her make Major in eighteen years. You know, I've always wondered about 'meteoric' because meteors go down and she was definitely on her way up."

"You're going to get a boot in your asteroid if you don't stick to the subject."

"Sticking to the subject, boss."

"Family? Husband?"

"No husband," Ziva cuts in. "No children."

"Who was she dating?"

"I... do not know." She sees her future in his eyes. "I shall find out."

"Easterbrook is assigned to the Pentagon," DiNozzo cuts back in, "where she's..." He reads the detail for the first time. "Oh, this isn't good."

"What?" Ziva asks, annoyed that DiNozzo's obviously seen something he's not sharing.

"She's the Executive Officer of the Washington Division of MAGTF CE."

"_What _is magtiff see?" Ziva demands, more frustrated than ever when Gibbs, Tim, even _Michelle _treat this as the bad news it so evidently is. Even after this many years with American military, she can't keep _all _the acronyms in her head.

"Marine Air-Ground Task Force Command Element," DiNozzo tells her in doomed tones. "Short answer, they run and coordinate everything: Ground, Aviation and Logistics. Basically if it goes bang, boom or pow, MAGTF handles it."

"Ground Combat Element:" Gibbs says sharply, "infantry, tanks, artillery, scouts or Recon Battalions, snipers and forward air controllers. Aviation Element: all aircraft, their pilots and maintenance personnel. Logistics Element: all the support units: communications, combat engineers, motor transport, medical, supply units, _shall I go on_?"

"No. As Tony said, 'this isn't good'."

x

"The Corps," Gibbs tells her, "have a load of reconn elements; they work with the Marine Air-Ground Task Force, provide the Force and Component Commanders, such as Marine Expeditionary Force or Landing Force Commanders, with maneuver space and reaction time, and prevent enemy forces and their activities from interfering with friendly operations. MAGTF operations deal with Maritime Security Operations too."

McGee picks up when Gibbs pauses for a breath. "Division Reconnaissance doesn't operate in deep operations. They support the Marine Infantry regiments by providing ground reconnaissance to Division, Regimental or Battalion Commanders within the MAGTF's subordinate Marine Expeditionary Units."

"Force Recon," Michelle picks up, "supports the Force Commanders of the Fleet Marine Force, Marine Expeditionary Force and others in deep reconnaissance and direct action missions."

"C.E., Command Element, runs the show," McGee concludes. "Eastergaard, therefore, among other things, knows where everyone is because she sent them."

Gibbs doesn't like the red flag rising in his mind. "Ziva, I want her CO on MTAC before I finish my coffee."

As she departs to prepare that contact, Gibbs turns to Michelle. "You got her LES yet?"

"Yes, sir." The Leave and Earnings Statement will give them her salary and from which divisions and duties she obtained them, "but the bank records are taking longer. That won't be released without proof of death."

"You have one hour."

"Looks like Eastergaard has only one dark spot on her record," Tony says, reading through the woman's official file. "Five years ago, while a Captain in Iraq, she was accused - though apparently not charged - of allowing weapons intended for our boys to fall into the hands of Saddam Hussein. The accusation alleges he used those weapons for genocidal attacks in Kurdistan."

x

That's an extremely serious charge, for which she's 'accused but not charged'. "What did the Investigation show?"

"No unaccounted for weapons, everything that went over apparently got to the right people. NCIS - in the persons of Special Agent Siddig Mahmoud and his team - and the Corps - independently investigated her, found no evidence, exonerated her and shelved the case. The record wasn't expunged, however, though notations in her file clearly mark them unfounded. Apparently the accusation came up around the time she was being considered for Major five years ago, her promotion was held up for a few weeks, then went through. She's been at the Pentagon for eight years, the first three as Captain after coming in from that tour in Iraq."

Gibbs thinks of the wording of the suicide note, but decides it's too early to even contemplate a connection. "Anything else?"

"Nada, just a notation that the accusation happened. It was declared unfounded. Other than that, her record's so clean you could eat off it."

"You might, DiNozzo. I've never met an officer with a perfect record. There are always the forgiven blunders that never make it on paper. What're hers?"

"I'll check."

"Yes, you will." He gets up and heads for the exit. "I'll be with Ducky, then MTAC. McGee," he calls as he heads for the elevator, "you'd better have some answers from that security disk when I get back. Palmer, those bank records on my desk before then."

x

Michelle bites her tongue to stop her protest, recognizing Tim's not faring better than she is. She picks up her phone; if the Corps won't tell the bank for a few days that Eastergaard's dead, she's sure Ducky will and the phone's a lot faster than the elevator.

In the mood she's in, if the bank officers still drag their feet, maybe she'll give her husband some off-site work to keep him busy.

/Autopsy, you kill 'em, we chill 'em./

"Ap– ab– I–"

In the background she hears Mallard's annoyed /_Doctor Palmer_/.

"Jimmy," she doesn't disguise her own annoyance.

/I knew it was you,/ her husband assures her.

"You took a big chance."

/Caller ID./ Before she can bite it back she answers in Chinese, slips on her annoyance before she can catch herself – too late. His tone goes dead. /What do you want?/

She wants to apologize, to explain, but she remembers she has only seconds and explains her predicament with the officious bank personnel instead. She'll call back when he's alone, try to make up.

/We'll get a Death Certificate out as soon as possible,/ he says, his voice emptier than before, /but I think you'll still miss Agent Gibbs' deadline./

"I'm not worried about that." She's worried about how he's taking her slip, and was that conclusion because he'd hold up the Certificate? No, never. But "Gibbs is–"

/Here./

/Tell her to get back to work/ filters in from the background, but she hangs up before Jimmy can relay the message.

But she never managed to say 'goodbye', or most especially to apologize. She longs to be able to open the window across the room so she can jump.

'How can I be so fraking _stupid_?'

xx

"What've you got, Duck?" Gibbs asks on top of his admonishment, finishes even before the doors seal behind him. On the middle silver table the corpse of Jubilee Eastergaard lies shattered under the portable X-ray machine.

"I have," Ducky says, pulling a flat metal framed exposure from the contained tray that holds up Eastergaard's body, "a woman whose nearly every bone has been shattered, which I'm sure you can appreciate accounts for her much flattened state."

Indeed, her cataclysmically ruptured body is caved in throughout her torso and her face is something Gibbs doesn't want to see. He will, however, look at it rather than dishonor this woman.

x

"Extensive skull fractures drove numerous fragments into her brain, [neck bone] fractures severed her spine in two places, shattered ribs punctured her heart, both lungs... suffice it to say that death was instantaneous, perhaps the only small blessing to come from this tragedy."

"Jumped, pushed or fell?"

"I shall leave that up to you. I've sent blood and other samples up to Abby with my inappropriately jovial Deputy. Unfortunately he elected to return from that errand." Ducky thinks, however, that Palmer looks anything but jovial now; he looks positively angry, but he'll find out later the cause for this reversal. Now he raises the black X-ray sheet he'd taken from the plate, examines it by the ceiling fluorescents, knowing his partner's sufficiently chastised by 'overhearing' that scathing remark.

"As to Cause of Death, though trauma is extreme I find nothing _as yet_ that is not accounted for by her instantaneous deceleration." He sets the exposure down next to the machine and prepares another slide.

"To put it succinctly her ribs, skull, arms, pelvis, legs, virtually every bone in her body shattered upon impact." He's haunted and unable to push the sensation away. "I shall hear that poor woman's scream every night for the rest of my life."

Gibbs tries to break his friend's melancholy mood. "What else did you find?"

"Well, if her bones were so devastatingly shattered, and you can see what the impact did to her epidermis as the downward force of impact was turned outward, finding any non-fall related injuries will be time consuming. If I find any perimortem bruising or other injuries that cannot be accounted for by the impact, or anything else that may reasonably be termed a clue, I shall notify you immediately."

xxx

Special Agent Cris Drakis forces his eyes open and wishes he could keep them closed for another week. The pleasure of returning home after eight months as Special Agent Afloat aboard the Carrier Eisenhower is worse than soured by the worst flu he's had in over twenty years. The Eisenhower docked last night in the Navy Yard, he barely made it home, took the medicine CMO Kassavetes gave him and fell into a deep sleep.

He'd prefer a coma, but at least there's some Thera-Flu in his medicine cabinet - he thinks - if he can stand the aches long enough to get to the bathroom.

He shoves the heavy blanket aside, struggles to roll over and get to his feet, hacking cough and sore lungs his only reward for this major accomplishment.

"Not fair," he groans, carefully crossing the thick carpet and praying the house doesn't turn and make him walk into a wall. "Eight months I'm gone, finally back and sick as shit."

He makes it into the hall, staggers into the kitchen, finds a new ache with every movement and turns on the light.

The explosion rocks the suburban neighborhood for blocks in every direction. A billion fragments rush from the fireball that expands, a plume of yellow flame, a hundred feet over the crater where the one story home stood. Burning wood rains down about the crater and thirty car alarms fill the neighborhood when the deafening blast fades into the crackling inferno.

xxx

As Gibbs stalks down the ramp into the MTAC bay, he's gratified to see Ziva turn to and signal the closest of two technicians before she addresses him.

"I have not yet told her CO, Colonel David Varley, why you wish to speak to him." Consistent with interrogative procedure, they'll watch the man's reaction to the revelation together.

Three seconds later the huge center screen lights to display a wood paneled office and large window behind a uniformed Marine Colonel. The years show heavily upon his face and in his iron grey hair and the rows of colorful medal bars testify to the use of those years. The medals, of course, are aligned perfectly, as is the man's posture. "Special Agent Gibbs?"

"Good day, Colonel." It won't be in a minute.

"Why does NCIS send out such an urgent call to speak to me personally?"

"You know a Major Jubilee Eastergaard?"

"Of course I know her, she's my Exec."

"She's dead." He watches the sledgehammer blow between the eyes render its full effect. Varley's face, his entire body, freeze at the words; Gibbs has imagined statues with more animation.

Varley's only change is in tone, shock transmuting into demand. "How?"

"We're still investigating, and first is to know what about her job may be related?"

"We're part of the Command Element for MAGTF, currently focused on the Mid-East."

"Who isn't?"

"Sorry, this is a bit of a shock."

"Understand that, Colonel." Only now does Varley's ramrod straight posture relax, but even this is negligible. "What were her duties?"

"She's my XO, as I said. Her duties are as extensive as mine: Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Pakistan and so forth."

x

"We'll be out there to talk to you and your people. I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't let word get out ahead of us."

"No. No, I quite understand. When can I expect you?"

"Half hour."

The moment the screen goes to the multi-hued test bar pattern Gibbs' has his phone already in his hand and he presses speed dial number one.

Director Jennifer Shepherd's voice slices the fifth ring. /What is it, Jethro?/

She sounds stressed, but he's about to add to it. "That woman who went down in Near Northeast, she's MAGTF CE's XO." Quiet. "Jenny?"

/Tell me something to really ruin my day, why don't you?/

"A woman does a swan dive from the 43rd floor, reporters thick as locusts."

/They know who she was?/

"Should by now."

/Get off the line, I have to issue a gag order; no name, no one announces what she does. Last thing the Corps needs is for al Qaeda or the Taliban to pick up on this before we're ready./


	3. Four Walls and a Spare

Chapter Three  
>Four Walls and a Spare<p>

How Major Jubilee Easterbrook's life ended is patently obvious - though neither Ducky nor Abby ever confine themselves to the obvious. Now Gibbs, DiNozzo and David journey to the Pentagon to find out how she'd lived.

The three field agents have left McGee and Palmer behind to access Eastergaard's phone and bank records, to look for activity that reflects upon and might bring to light more on the cryptic suicide note. McGee also studies the lobby Security videos from the Valhalla. Gibbs had instructed the man to give him some answers based on that footage by the time he returned from MTAC. The computer expert's reprieve comes only because he wants to see Eastergaard's offices in situ and get answers of his own from the woman's CO and co-workers.

xxx

The Pentagon has been described as 'four walls and a spare', a monument to military thinking. In reality, it's the locus of all five Armed Forces; in Gibbs' ascending order they're Air Force, Army, Coast Guard, Navy and Marines. Though DiNozzo has often said each branch should have a wing, in reality the arrangement of sections follows a complex system of interlocked services known to those authorized to be there but understood by few.

DiNozzo, who's been lost on ships four times in his career, can find his way around but he never turns down an escort, particularly one as fetching as First Sergeant Santer, who greets them at the outer checkpoint.

Though the six and a half million square feet constitutes one of the largest office buildings in the country, the 17 miles of five concentric corridors, designated A through E in 'angled circles', are so woven that a person can reach any point in some 7 minutes and 23,000 employees do so each day. Therefore, the agents make their way to the middle or C ring in a not-too-burdensome period.

Gibbs can navigate the five concentric rings blindfolded, or by simply taking fast note of the five-fold designations prominently featured throughout the tremendous expanse, but he doubts DiNozzo, who carries the black Crime Scene duffle bag, could find his way back to the parking lot unless he at some time removes his eyes from the slightly swaying uniform pants in front of him.

In due time the three agents, as uniformed in their own way as the varied men and women they pass, reach the appropriate section and finally the inner office of Colonel David Varley, head of MAGTF CE, the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Command Element.

Introductions are made with crisp dispatch by Sergeant Santer, who immediately departs, for the first time without DiNozzo's rapt attention.

x

The Colonel's office is unadorned, everything in it as precise and crisp as the Marine before them. Gibbs suspects every paper on the desk lines precisely with the table's edges and not a single binding of any book on the shelf to their right is a millimeter out of line. The man's uniform creases could double as letter openers, and when David Varley rises to greet them he doesn't come to attention, for military 'attention' is just a hair's breadth less stiff. When he shakes hands with each of the agents his uniform sleeve barely folds with the motion.

When they're seated, DiNozzo reflects upon Spock's first seating himself in Kirk's quarters in 'Star Trek the Motion Picture', though Nimoy had slumped quite slovenly by comparison.

"What can you tell me?" Varley dispenses with preamble as he might with clutter.

"Not a lot." Gibbs intends to play everything so close to the vest the only way to read the cards is through his back. It can't be easy for the man to lose his Executive Officer, but until Gibbs can get a sense of the man's characteristic manner - which is probably this - he'll hold back all he can. "When did you last see Major Eastergaard?"

"Friday evening, we had our usual 1800 debriefing and evaluation. She left at 1823."

"Arrived on time?" Attentive to the detail, he's particularly conscious that Varley has the figures at ready.

"I insist upon punctuality."

"Did she seem depressed, anxious, distressed?" Okay, it was three days before she left the balcony but

"She seemed perfectly normal."

Gibbs and the others will learn what that is; no one's perfectly anything, in spite of Varley's precision. Facial and bodily signals are revealing, but thus far Varley hasn't given any, except by their absence. Eye contact is common, stronger personalities can maintain it longer but Varley seems to have locked on to one molecule of Gibbs' left eye and doesn't seem likely to break that lock.

DiNozzo wants to see if he can break it. "You noticed nothing unusual about her at all?"

Varley shifts his attention for three-quarters of a second. "Nothing." The lock is reengaged.

"What were Major Eastergaard's exact responsibilities?" Ziva asks, more to distract Varley's precision by, as Tony might say, covering ground already plowed.

Varley turns his impersonal gaze to her.

"She was responsible for it all. A Marine Air-Ground Task Force, with separate air ground headquarters, is normally formed for combat operations and training exercises in which substantial combat forces of both aviation and ground units are included in the task organization of participating forces."

x

Gibbs recognizes the near-quote from a very familiar Marine Corps Order, 3120.3 from December, 1962, but it's a good summary of their operation and NCIS' problem. Gibbs remembers it because of an incident during his days in uniform, but he's not surprised Varley has memorized the forty-plus year old document. He resists the urge - for now - to see if the man's memorized all such documents.

The Ground Combat Element covers infantry, tanks, artillery, scouts or Recon Battalions, snipers and forward Air Controllers. Aviation Element covers all aircraft, their pilots and maintenance personnel. The Logistics Element concerns itself with all the support units: communications, combat engineers, motor transport, medical, supply units and certain specialized groups such as Air Delivery, Landing Support teams and so forth.

If Eastergaard's death is connected to these, as her suicide note seems to imply, the Corps would be critically compromised.

x

"How well did she do her work?" Gibbs asks.

"She was exemplary," Varley the Vulcan reveals. "She was ready to take over."

"Take over?"

Varley nods, a precise gesture. "I'm due to stand down in two months. Major Eastergaard's promotion to Lieutenant Colonel is in. She was to take over this facility in June."

June is barely half a month off. "How did you feel about that?" DiNozzo asks, feeling something's missing and certain it's feeling. He's seen both Nimoy and Spiner play Vulcan and android, neither was as stiff or stoic.

"Major Eastergaard was one of three candidates originally considered for the post, but she was the one I chose and the Commandant backed it. I guess we'll have to relook at the other two now. I was looking forward to retirement, but if neither Majors Moses Hedberg nor Arlen Cruller pass muster, I'm in until I or the Corps can find a replacement."

"You don't sound all broken up about it."

"I am."

xx

Armed with the names of the other two candidates for promotion to head the Regional CE, Gibbs, DiNozzo and David regroup in the corridor.

"Like interviewing R Daneel Olivaw," DiNozzo says.

"Who?" Gibbs demands. Interviewing Varley was less informative than a chat with his near-finished boat. In fact, he'd prefer the boat; at least he knows where the Hollis' nuts and bolts can be found.

"Someone McAsimov was talking about the other day, a robot detective, but I think now that the robots he interrogated are more like it. Like interviewing a statue."

"Tell me about it, DiNozzo." If Varley was concealing something, he couldn't have chosen a better strategy, yet a motionless, monotone subject sets Gibbs' alarms off in near deafening intensity.

"But is his composure characteristic or an affectation?" Ziva asks.

"One more thing to find out. Meantime, how's _our _concealment going?" He wants the answer directly and pulls out his cell phone. It only needs two rings.

/Special Agen–/

"Palmer, how's the gag order on Eastergaard's death?"

/Well, sir, I've only had chance to monitor a few stations, though I did get the bank records you wanted. I–/

"Focus, Palmer."

/Yes sir, sorry. ZNN only said 'an unidentified woman' fell, other big news stations are following through - no revelation of name until next-of-kin have been notified. 'Beltway' Matt Burns, however, claims to have proof she suicided over her involvement in helping Saddam Hussein slaughter Kurdish rebels./

This sounds too familiar, a rehash of DiNozzo's earlier report, but then-Captain Eastergaard had been exonerated of that charge; no missing weapons and nothing to declare the accusation founded.

But was there something to it? And did now-Major Eastergaard fear a reopening of that investigation after all this time? Was there something to find?

'I can't endure this anymore. I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way,' the supposed suicide note had read. Would another look into her background not go as well for the woman?

But her promotion is already a 'done deal'. She's been vetted by NCIS and the Corps, her silver Lt. Colonel's leaves were practically on her shoulders. If not over this supposedly dead rumor, then why did she jump?

x

Gibbs has endured a total of three of Beltway Burns' rants. The third was during a particularly generous phase in his life, when things had been going exceedingly well with Holly and he was uncharacteristically willing to give the man a chance. He'd found the blogger's 'news' consists of nothing beyond unsubstantiated rumors flavored with innuendo and spiced with outright lies. He'd caught the web streamer in several without having to see his face.

"Burns hasn't been accurate on anything I've heard, but we'll have to talk with him. Send Marigrand to bring him in."

/On what charge?/

Gibbs is amazed Palmer can ask this, but he's ready with an appropriate answer. "Freedom of Information Act."

/Yes, sir./

"Don't call m–" He's talking to dead air.

x

"Looks like the Probette's learning something," DiNozzo quips.

"How goes the muzzle?" Ziva asks.

"Gag," DiNozzo corrects almost automatically.

"Mine is more appropriate."

"The legitimate stations are withholding," Gibbs' firm tone silences the byplay, though he agrees with Ziva, "leaving room for Matt 'Beltway' Burns and his cronies to spread theory as fact."

"The legit stations?" DiNozzo considers Gibbs' parameters for the qualification, but on the whole he feels that this much cooperation from the media is "Better than nothing."

"Nothing would be better."

xx

The Agents' first destination is the next door east, and when they let themselves into the outer office they see a 2nd Lieutenant seated behind the desk across the room from them. To her right is Major Jubilee Eastergaard's inner sanctum.

"May I help you?"

Introductions are brief, the black jacketed investigators no more have to tell the woman - Kimberly Almonk by introduction and her desk nameplate - that they're from NCIS than she must reveal that she's a Marine.

Almonk rises, the better to deal with the visitors eye-to-eye. "I'm sorry, Major Eastergaard isn't in yet, but perhaps I might help you?"

"Is she usually on time?" It's quarter after one in the afternoon.

"Yes sir. I'm not sure why she's late," Almonk confesses. She looks like she wouldn't give even this much Intel, but when NCIS comes asking questions the more peaceful thing she can do, until she receives instructions otherwise, is to answer genuinely innocuous questions and refer any others to the Colonel. "She hasn't called and–"

"She's dead." Gibbs' hammer blow to the forehead hits the opposite extreme it had on Colonel Varley: Lieutenant Almonk is rocked to her heels.

"_Oh my God_," she whispers. Hand to her chest, she must bite her gasps. "You're _sure_?" She waves the question aside; NCIS wouldn't be in this office if they weren't sure.

x

In fact, Gibbs and his agents are very sure. They'd left the woman's shattered body back in the Autopsy suite a short while ago. Ducky's preliminary report on the woman's cataclysmic face-down impact with concrete following a nearly six hundred foot fall included the fact that virtually every bone in her body was shattered, an epinominous expression translated into gruesome reality.

"How did she die?"

"You were Major Eastergaard's Aide?"

It takes Almonk a second to switch gears, to realize by this question-with-a-question response that she isn't going to get an answer. It makes her want it all the more.

"Yes. I've - I've been here with Ju– with Major Eastergaard f-for eight years. Sir, do you mind if I sit down?"

Gibbs gestures his permission, such little as he has to give. The woman is more damaged than she allows to show, grief tightly contained behind a mask as brittle as it is stoic, but she must clutch her desk with her right hand, the computer station with her left, to steady herself into her seat. With her left hand she smoothes her short, light brown hair back, the locks run through tight fingers. Her face crumples, but she fights the grief. The agents give her what time she needs; it's more than a minute before Almonk wins the war against herself.

x

"My God, I can't believe it," she whispers, voice tight. She wipes away tears she couldn't keep from her eyes; none of the agents will see them. "Who did it?" she demands, fury warring with grief, another expressive feeling to be shut in and locked away until she can have solitude.

She seems fixed on someone having a hand in the Major's death, Gibbs notes. How far will that take? "We're not certain yet what happened. The last time you saw her, did she seem upset, disturbed, in any way out of the ordinary?"

Almonk must fight harder, but eventually she smothers all emotion from her voice rather than allow the gram of feeling that will shatter her armor. "She and I spent all of Friday together. She'd been going over readiness reports, to make sure all the Units in Uzbekistan are up to standards. I didn't see her this weekend."

"Did she seem distracted, upset, stressed?" he asks again, refocusing the woman.

"No, she seemed fine." Again grief batters her; she caps the vent with great force. The agents know that once they're gone that volcano will probably explode, but for now Almonk keeps it capped. "Sure, she wasn't satisfied with all our Units - they're Marines but as a new CO she was setting extra-high standards - but she was certain everything would be whipped into shape. She's to be promoted to Lieutenant Colonel if you know; she'll replace Spock – I mean Colonel Varley, sorry, I'm a bit - that is–"

Gibbs raises a hand; she's giving good information he doesn't want lost in her flustered distress over an in-house gaff.

"You're due for promotion too, are you?" DiNozzo asks, mainly to distract the woman.

"Yes, sir; First Lieutenant. I'll be staying with– I'd have stayed with her when we - would've moved next door." Again the grief, the rage, batter her. She must fight harder, longer, until she can look up at them with clear eyes.


	4. Look at the Competition

Chapter Four  
>Look at the Competition<p>

"We understand Major Eastergaard beat up two other candidates for the Colonel's post," Ziva says to 2nd Lieutenant Kimberly Almonk, Major Eastergaard's Aide, in the outer office.

"I– Excuse me?"

"She means 'beat out'," DiNozzo interjects.

"Yes, beat _out _a Major Moses Hedberg and a Major Arlen Cruller."

"Yes," Almonk doesn't bother to hide a sour tone or expression; those she'll express even though she keeps grief and rage tightly bottled. She turns to Gibbs standing directly before her. "Permission to speak freely, sir?"

"Only way I want it, Lieutenant."

"If this weren't the Corps I'd quit before working under either of them. I'm already under them though I reported to Major Eastergaard, but to have either as a CO would be hell on earth."

"Why?"

"Hedberg's a misogynistic bastard who'd turn the Corps into a men's club if he could, while Cruller can't run things worth shit. He has _his _way of running things and he's always right, especially when he's wrong. He doesn't listen to input from anyone."

"Either of them want the silver leaves badly enough to shove Eastergaard aside?"

For a moment the thought, in addition to being appalling, reignites anger but Almonk shoves it down, struggles hard for a dispassionate tone. There's so much passion, however, that it takes her a while.

x

"As much as Hedberg would make my life - and that of every other woman here - a living hell if he gets those silver leaves, his would be one to him working - that is, if he'd had to work under Ju - Major Eastergaard. He's not a bad guy, not vindictively anti-fem; I'd even feel for him if he had to be under her. She doesn't - didn't - take shit from anybody, but I don't think he'd do anything _to _her.

"Cruller, on the other hand, is an idiot. He could be a good leader if he weren't so busy running things. We have some excellent men and women here; the Corps has the best and we have the best of the best. Agent Gibbs, where would you be, sir, if you didn't listen to _your _team?"

"Up that famous creek without the paddle."

"But no, to answer your question, I can't see either of them hurting Major Eastergaard to get the promotion. They'd fought, maybe they'd even fought dirty, to get it when it was contested, but once the Colonel'd made his decision that was it. The Commandant and the Secretary of Defense approved and the contest was done."

x

"You were going to be promoted one level concurrent with Eastergaard's advancement," Ziva points out.

"Yes." They read in her eyes that she's wondering why Ziva re-raises the point.

"Why just to First Lieutenant? A Lieutenant Colonel's - a CO's - Aide would be a Captain at least, would she not?"

"In time. We already discussed it. I'll - I'd've been - bumped up a few weeks or months later."

"Why not at once? Surely there is no reason not to, is there? Lieutenant Colonel Eastergaard would have been CO; it is just a pen stroke to make you a Captain. It must have felt like quite a let down."

"I wasn't worried," Almonk says more tightly, palms pressed flat upon her desk.

Ziva doesn't pursue the point; it's enough now for Almonk to be aware that she's shown a chink in her armor. There's another goose to pursue.

"Majors Hedberg and Cruller have their own Aides who would have earned advancement upon that of their superiors, would they not?"

"Of course."

"Would one of _them _put Major Eastergaard out of the way?"

x

If Almonk had been rocked by the news of her friend's - presumed friend's - death, this figuratively knocks her out of her chair. "_No_." She's hushed by horror. "No, it's unthinkable. No, _neither _of them would do such a thing just to make Captain."

"Both Majors Hedberg and Cruller's Aides are already First Lieutenants?"

"_So_?"

"I do not believe you are incognescent of the fact that everyone in this situation is so much further advanced than you are. Were you not displeased with Major Eastergaard's decision not to advance you to a corresponding position, to give you the duties of a CO's Aide without the corresponding rank? Indeed, to leave you _subordinate _to persons promoted prior to yourself yet in a lower position of responsibility?"

Almonk rises, face almost scarlet. "Jubilee was my _friend _- and our terms are none of your _fucking business_."

"You will find that where the death of Major Eastergaard is concerned, everything is our business."

x

Almonk stops, visibly forces her temper down, the color gradually drains from her face until it almost, but not quite, reaches its former shade. "Jubilee was my friend."

"I hope so," Gibbs says, "because you're in a position to help us find out what happened to her."

Almonk sits down again, says nothing until she's closed her eyes and breathed slowly several times. "I guess," she says, looking up at Gibbs, "that you consider me a suspect."

"Thought crossed my mind."

"Then let me drive it out. I did _not _hurt her, I wouldn't - and my career is my own screw up."

"Tell us about it," he says in a tone that says he knows there's a story coming and he wants it.

x

Almonk quite evidently doesn't want to give it. The agents read on her face that perhaps she decides that NCIS will have it despite her reluctance and, by making them work for it, they won't be so sympathetic next time they come.

"Couple of years ago I was a Corporal, and I stood Court Martial because I cold-cocked - knocked out in fact - my Sergeant."

"There's gotta be more than this," DiNozzo insists when he can cover his surprise.

"There is. We were on liberty, the Sarge and I, two Lance Corporals. We were at this bar and ready to leave. I said Sarge was plastered, Sarge said sober and was going to drive. We had words, then more words, then a lot of hot words. Next thing I knew Sarge is down, out for the count, and the Lances are holding me for the MPs.

"But at my Court, the Sarge took _my _side. I could've drawn a DD or perhaps even a stint in Leavenworth; but all that happened was I was busted two levels to PFC. But the Sarge and I stayed good friends since."

"Lemme guess. The Sarge was..."

"Right. Jubilee. We stuck together through thick and thin ever since, and when she made XO she wouldn't have any other Aide but me. So no, Agents, I would _not _have hurt her, but if you need someone to string up the bastard that did, you come to me."

x

"We need to look at her office," Gibbs says instead, gives the woman no indication of what he believes or what conclusions, if any, he might have drawn.

"Yes, sir." Almonk rises and draws from her pocket a ring of keys, chooses one and steps to the door to her right. By her manner the agents can read her reluctance to let people into her superior's - her friend's - private sanctum but her friend is dead and an examination of this room may provide the best way to track down the one who killed her.

Gibbs won't reveal the Major's supposed suicide. If Almonk wants to focus on this being a murder, he'll allow it so he can glean possible motives and suspects, all the time seeking what's behind Eastergaard's cryptic message.

'_I can't endure this anymore. I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way_,' Eastergaard had written. Perhaps what's beyond this door will shed light upon the woman's distress.

x

The office appears, at first impression, more worked in than Varley's almost obsessive neatness and precision. Though clean and orderly, there's a naturalness to the scene that's absent in the CO's office. The Corps eagle and anchor paperweight isn't precisely aligned to the desk edges, the chair is angled as it was left the last time the woman had used it, the stack of papers in the 'In' box aren't 'out-of-the-copy-paper-case' stacked.

Several files are stacked in an 'Out' box at the left corner of the massive oaken desk, itself somewhat removed from the standard government/Pentagon issue, something Gibbs questions immediately.

"It's her desk," Almonk replies, "and getting it in here was a chore, believe me. It's too big for the doors, so the window had to come out. Colonel Varley flipped over that but Major Eastergaard told him she'll let himchoose any desk that _he _wants."

"An audacious officer," Ziva observes.

"She wasn't an 'itch', but you didn't push her around either."

x

During this exchange Ziva sets the black Crime Scene duffle bag down in the northeast corner beside the bookshelves and begins the first of two panoramic series; the next one will be from the opposite corner by the window behind the desk.

"We'll need everything from her desk," Gibbs tells Almonk, "from files to scrap paper."

"I don't suppose I can stop you, can I?"

"Nope."

"Wires," is all Tony interjects as he points to the set of blue wires resting upon the desk's right corner.

"Where's the Major's computer?" Gibbs asks, already knowing the answer. Having displayed the suicide note, it now resides in Evidence Holding, the contents of its hard drive 'mirrored' onto McGee's much higher capacity computer.

"Her laptop. She takes it with her, never leaves it behind. If it's not with her, I've got it."

"No one else ever accesses it?"

"No one. She treats that thing like platinum, almost everything on it is Top Secret, with encryptions the DOD would have trouble breaking. First you need to open the password-protected file, then input the key - and only she and I have that. If the laptop's missing then I've no idea who's got it."

"We've got it."

Relief visibly washes over her. "Thank God. But why did you pretend you didn't know?"

"To check your answers against what we do know."

She turns full on Gibbs. "How much more aren't you telling me... sir?"

"A lot."

x

Faced with this honest conclusion, Almonk realizes she has no choice but to accept it, though she needn't - and doesn't - take it in good grace. "You don't have to keep things from me. I have a Level One Security Clearance. When it comes to MAGTF CE, there's virtually nothing Jubilee knew that I don't."

"In a murder investigation, everything is 'Need to Know', and I decide what you need."

"That's Rule 45," DiNozzo offers helpfully.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but I can help you find Jubilee's killer."

"What makes you think there is a killer?" Ziva challenges. "We have only told you that she is dead."

"If nobody killed her, how did she die?"

"We'll need access to her files, everything she worked on in the past six weeks."

"You're not going to answer _any _of my questions, are you?"

"I'll answer that one: No."

"Agent ... Gibbs, is it?"

"Yes."

"Has anyone ever told you that you're a bastard?"

Ziva and DiNozzo exchange glances, but Gibbs does answer honestly. "Occasionally."

xx

A half-hour later in the hallway, Tony can't help but point out that "You were pretty hard on Almonk, boss. She had Eastergaard's ear and knows everything her boss knew; we could've dug up something with her. You could've used a carrot instead of a stick, thrown her a bone."

Gibbs steps in front of him. "You got any more euphemisms you want to waste on me?"

"No, I'm done."

"You bet you are. Let me remind you of something you've obviously forgotten: a good Aide doesn't know as much as her CO does, she knows _more_, which is why Almonk probably knows why Eastergaard is dead, even if she doesn't know she knows."

"So we bring her back with us, sweat it out of her?" Gibbs' hand comes up so fast that, even face to face, DiNozzo almost misses it, only feels the effect.

"I want to know what's on that laptop. The DOD may have trouble breaking it, but McGee'd better have those files open by the time we get back."

xx

Major Cruller isn't in his office but Major Hedberg makes time to consult with the agents. Gibbs, DiNozzo and David are escorted the few steps through the outer office by First Lieutenant Mark Johnston - so noted on the desk placard - and left with a tall, thin and very impatient officer.

There are two vacant seats in the room and Hedberg's "Have a seat, gentlemen" is very specific. Ziva, far from feeling put out, does prefer to stand in what feels is enemy territory.

Gibbs and DiNozzo allow their own opinions to show in eyes if not in faces, as well as in the three-quarter speed at which they avail themselves of the courtesy.

"What does NCIS want now?"

"Now?" Gibbs asks, unfazed by the brusque attitude. He doesn't even count it as strike two.

"Every time NCIS shows up it's nothing but lost work and worse. You guys were here two months ago, tore this department apart and no good came of it."

"Some good," Gibbs counters.

"What?"

"We'll let you know," he replies, aiming for aggravation.

"Damned women digging through my command; French and Jew, nothing but trouble. Vetting hell - torpedoing more like it." He glares at Ziva. "Bet you're here to make more."

"I am not French," Ziva assures him.

With the description, the agents know the women to be Lisa DuBois and Janet Levy from Kevin Lamb's team, and they suspect the 'vetting' in question led to Jubilee Eastergaard's selection as the next CO.

"Terrible when women get out of their place," Tony empathizes and earns a glare from Ziva.

"Yes it is."

"David, we can handle this," Gibbs says. "Why don't you see if you can hunt us down some coffee?"

Ziva looks like she could boil the cups in her hands, says 'yes sir' with the proper degree of humiliation and swallowed offence and for a moment Gibbs fears DiNozzo is about to spread things on too thickly with a 'sweet cheeks' line, but he only follows Ziva's cheeks with silent gaze as the woman leaves and takes the duffle bag with her.

x

"Now we can get down to business," Gibbs declares when the men are alone, but decides that this time he'll willingly make an exception to Rule 6 when he's alone with the woman again. "There are some incomplete sections of the vetting process we needed to go over. First, apologies for your inconvenience last time. Tell me, was Special Agent Lamb with Levy and DuBois?" It feels wrong to deliberately drop their titles even though they're not here.

"He was not. He was the first time, but not the second when it counted."

Gibbs gives DiNozzo a significant though mendacious glance, though what he says to Hedberg is "Now we see why the report's incomplete."

Actually he approves of Kevin Lamb's tactic; his first interview had unearthed a militant misogynist, in the second visit Hedberg himself had undoubtedly launched and detonated that torpedo.

"In the time since..." he consults his notepad, "Jubel Lee Eastergarden was selected over you, have you two spent much time together?"

"The less time I spend with that idiot, the better."

"Why?" DiNozzo asks. "She is, after all, your superior."

"She's superior to an amoeba - barely. I have to work with her, doesn't mean I have to tolerate her."

The men wonder how this officer earned - and keeps - Major's leaves; presumably he's secure enough in his position to express himself in terms that more politically correct-minded officers would blanch over, but he _does _refer to his rival in the present tense.

"So obviously you disagree with her selection as CO. How do you anticipate it'll be to work under her?"

"Can't avoid it, can I? But I'll deal with her as little as possible. I'll let Lieutenant Johnston handle the day-to-day stuff, I'll only get into her when I have to."

Gibbs and DiNozzo let the broad entendre go. Presently the only ones 'getting into' Eastergaard are Mallard and Palmer.

x

"Personally," DiNozzo interjects, "I think you're right. Ever since women pushed their way into the Corps, probably on some 'affirmative action' idiocy; well, there's two women on our team, not just David, but one's pretty much as useless as the other. So the other graduated in the top five percent of her class at Harvard Law and with Honors at FLETC, I think she only made it on our _team _because she lawyered her way in and she's married to our ME."

"Mallard?"

Tony suppresses a twinge at the image. "The other one. My point is that they don't belong. I'm constantly correcting David's mistakes. I feel for you, I can't imagine a woman being head of any organization."

"Don't you have one for _your _boss?"

Tony realizes he's played it too broadly. "Well, they _say _she's in charge, but really we just humor her when she's around and hope she goes back to her office quickly so we can get some work done."

"Amen."

xx

When Gibbs and DiNozzo are once again in the outer corridor they're obliged to air out their minds, but the interview, prolonged as it was - "Where _was _Ziva with that coffee?" DiNozzo wonders - was most progressive. At no time during the long exchange did Hedberg step out of referring to Eastergaard in the present tense, and he has an avowed desire to have no idea or interest in knowing where the woman lived.

They'd managed to leave the impression that the former evaluation which Janet Levy and Lisa DuBois had botched would be reviewed, though in fact the men have already reviewed it in absentia and are quite willing to add their Seconds.


	5. You Know Nothing

Chapter Five  
>You Know Nothing<p>

During the walk toward their interview with Major Cruller, Gibbs pulls out his cell phone but DiNozzo cuts him off with

"I think we can cross Hedberg off our list of suspects."

"Ya _think_, DiNozzo?" If the man had killed Jubilee Eastergaard to remove her as a rival for Command of the Marine Air-Ground Task Force Command Element, he not only couldn't conceal the act, he'd probably throw himself a parade.

Gibbs takes a swig of his double-extra-large coffee; David actually had fulfilled her mendacious role by buying coffee for the three of them after securing the evidence in the MCRT truck and it helps him think. Then he'll use the phone still in his hand.

The XO - and recently selected upcoming CO of the MAGTF-CE headquartered in the Pentagon -supposedly committed suicide by leaping from the forty-third story of her high-rise condo, and she supposedly did this after leaving a cryptic suicide note wherein she expressed her fear of exposure of some devastating secret.

_'I can't endure this anymore. I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way,_' she'd written on her laptop computer screen, a maddeningly unspecific note as replete with vague mystery as is her choice of clothing to wear for the suicide.

She'd landed face down at the foot of the Valhalla, barely dressed in nipple-cutout pink bra and equally sheer crotchless panties, a distinctive combination indeed in which to end one's life.

xx

"Special Agent McGee," Tim says into his phone's receiver but his boss almost slices off the last e.

/What's on the radio?/

McGee knows Gibbs means more than radio, and that he wants to know if the media is abiding by Shepherd's gag order regarding Major Eastergaard's identity. "Except for 'Beltway Burns', everyone's keeping to the story that the name is withheld pending notification of the family."

/No family./

"I know. Burns, however, is using the general order as proof of a Marine cover-up. He says she's been investigated for gun-running, well, why don't I send you the feed?"

/Send Ziva./

"Will do. Happy to get rid of it."

/Anything on Eastergaard's laptop to back up the claim?/ Thus far the allegation had been investigated - and dismissed - several years ago and Beltway Burns' name has cropped up in connection with it too many times today.

"Not so far. I'm still finding and breaking passwords. Abby's going over the laptop itself, she says there's three sets of prints, Eastergaard's and a Second Lieutenant Kimberly Almonk."

/Eastergaard's Aide. Check her out too./

"Will do." When the congruency had come in, he'd already asked Michelle Palmer to check the woman. She'll have a complete report before Gibbs returns, which will probably be sometime after he calls for it again.

"The third set is unidentified; not military and AIFIS has nothing."

/Track down that set. Beltway Burns said in his blog that Eastergaard sold weapons to Saddam Hussein that he used against the Kurd rebels. Find out when he–/

"Already on it, and I know how you feel about coincidence. The accusation broke the same month that a Lieutenant Colonel Dallas was transferred out from the XO position to head another CE branch and Colonel Varley started looking for a replacement."

He's immediately left with dead air.

x

"I don't like it," Gibbs muses as he puts his phone back into his jacket pocket.

"Neither do I," DiNozzo says, but moments later is forced to his boss' silence to ask "What don't we like?"

"That gunrunning story, it pops up every time Eastergaard's in line for a promotion, just before the decision is made among the front runners."

"Convenient."

"You know what I think about convenient things."

"Yeah." But when Gibbs doesn't elucidate, he's forced to ask "What?"

Gibbs spares him only half a glance. "Rule 47: When you're handed conveniences, they're too damned convenient."

Seconds later Ziva reports McGee's uploaded the file and they pause in the corridor to hear it. Since 'Beltway' Burns' uninspired style is a nose-hair close-up of his rather unattractive features no one, not even Ziva, cares to see the small screen she holds. The florid tones are more than enough without seeing the Max Headroom of the Conspiracy set.

x

"I have it from the most reliable source," Burns gloats from Ziva's hand, "that the woman who leapt from the 43rd story of her building early this morning, US Marine Major Jubilee Eastergaard, did so to avoid investigation and prosecution connected with her providing aid, resources and weapons to support Saddam Hussein in his genocidal attacks on Kurdish rebels in Iraq.

"Major Eastergaard is assigned in the Pentagon, and her suicide supports my source's contention that such atrocities as are being committed on a daily basis in Iraq, where women and children are gunned down in vicious disregard for American rights," this earns the device a half-glance from all three agents, "can only occur with the support of the United States military.

"Jubilee Eastergaard, First Officer of the Marines' Tactical Operations and Planning Program in the Pentagon, codenamed 'Magtif See', fell under suspicion some years ago when this reporter, citing secret Government documents, proved the complicity of then-Captain Eastergaard in providing weaponry for the Iraqi genocide in Kurdistan.

"However, despite overwhelming evidence, no action was taken against her. In fact, indications are that the evidence this reporter provided to Federal Investigators was squashed and Eastergaard has since been selected for promotion to Colonel–"

"Kill it," Gibbs commands and the voice goes silent immediately. "I'm really sorry."

DiNozzo must push his outrage aside to say "Sorry for what, boss?"

"That I told Palmer to have Marigrand bring Burns in."

xxx

When the team last attempted to speak to Major Arlen Cruller the man had been in a meeting, but this time they catch him between duties. The grey haired man projects a demanding, unforgiving manner, yet in the midst of it he manages to project his impatience onto the agents.

"Damned inconvenient time NCIS picks for a chat when there's work to be done."

"What sort of work?" Gibbs asks.

"MAGTF is a tremendous operation, Agent Gibbs, not just in the Pentagon but in coordinated efforts around the world."

"Such as?" He's sure that, busy as the man is, Cruller's going to be a lot busier when it's revealed that the Element's XO died this morning.

"That's classified. I don't know why we were sent a bunch of civvies. It's perfectly obvious to me, Agent Gibbs, that you know nothing about the US Marine Corps."

Gibbs sees DiNozzo and David flinch and look tfor somewhere to hide. "Enlighten me."

"I don't have the time; I've an entire division to manage and, as usual, they require a lot of attention."

"Well, I can see you don't have the time," Gibbs recalls what Lt. Almonk had said about micro-management, as well as Cruller's penchant for considering himself right particularly when he's wrong. "Who would?"

"No one. Well, you could try to get an appointment with our XO, Major Eastergaard, but don't get your hopes up. The CO's retiring in a few weeks so she's probably shuttling from one meeting to another for the next couple of. What did you need, anyway?"

"Just a follow-up on some matters, not urgent. Thank you for your time."

x

Tony tries not to stare at Gibbs as the meeting, such as it is, breaks up. He'd thought he'd have to crawl under the man's desk, to bring Ziva with him for her own survival, when Cruller dropped that line on Gibbs. The boss, however, hadn't changed his mild, inquisitive tone throughout the brief interview.

"He didn't do it either," Gibbs says when they close the outer door to Cruller's anteroom, before either agent can get the question out. Of that they're all in agreement. Cruller knows no more than Hedberg, the certainty that they think Eastergaard's still alive is only the tip of Gibbs' iceberg.

"Amazing that people still don't know she's dead," DiNozzo wonders. "Must've been some gag order."

"Shit'll hit the fan soon enough," Gibbs says, though he's privately impressed by the security of the secret as well. He decides to raise his already high estimation of Jennifer Shepherd. "With Cruller, micro-manage hard enough and things - like your XO's death - can fall through the cracks, but pretty soon someone's going to put things together. Before that happens though, I want Eastergaard's paperwork, and Beltway Burns in a sling."

xxx

Tim McGee sits back in his chair and rubs his eyes, tired after far too long looking at the too small, too indistinct, too darn far away footage from the Condo's lobby security camera. For the past several minutes, while staring at the slow moving, Harryhausen images of people coming and going through the lobby from the minute Major Eastergaard returned home last evening until Metro PD entered this morning, he's become aware of a soft but pervasive sound. As he struggles to pick out even one face - forget facial recognition software - the sound persists.

Finally, McGee decides he needs a break from both looking and listening, and he accesses this building's security cameras, a much more reliable - and properly installed - system; checks that his destination is clear, pushes back, comes out from behind his desk, turns right toward the rear exit of the bullpen and past his partner's desk. "Michelle, give me a hand in Archives?" He keeps on going and her 'sure, Tim' comes after he's already past her. He doesn't look back.

x

Archives is on the sixth floor, but he leads her to the stairs rather than the rear elevator for the three-flight trek, he walking slightly ahead of her, pretending not to notice that she holds two steps back. They exit on six, the petite woman's beside him as they traverse one corridor after another. "Tim," she finally ventures, "what are we looking for?"

He knows he's been stingy with information. "Some stuff."

x

Archives is literally tucked out of the way, four and counting rooms given over to head-high rows of white cardboard boxes of files and other paperwork not considered important enough to be permanently stored but still too young to be shredded or otherwise destroyed. Even old NIS documents haven't reached their expiration date.

He picks a door near the end of the hall, waves her to enter first, and as he joins her among the head-high rows of white cardboard boxes he closes the door and locks it.

"Tim?" She turns at the unexpected sound, and her brown eyes reflect unaccustomed apprehension.

"Mrs. Palmer."

She steps back. "_Mrs. _Palmer?" He's only addressed her as such once, with significant relish, on her wedding day. After she was 'Special Agent Lee' to him she was Michelle, but "Tim, the last time I was locked in a room with you I didn't enjoy it - and the time before _that _I liked a lot _less_."

"I thought at this moment you'd appreciate some privacy."

"Why?" Her suspicion drowns her voice.

"Because I've been doing Forensic Computer Analysis for a very long time, long before I graduated from FLETC. I've done background checks, IDs, financial trails, electronic records of all kinds; I've followed more money than I can count and tracked more perps than I've ever wanted to meet, using every electronic media you can imagine... and not once did any of those investigations involve crying."

x

She stares up at him and he can read her useless search for a lie. Finally her shoulders slump and she whispers "_Shit_. I hoped no one would notice."

"Oh, I noticed."

"Sorry."

"No, don't be. I want to help."

He can see how much work it takes to force a smile that collapses immediately. "You're about the only one, I think, that could. Well, maybe Special Agent Gibbs, but I can't see him ever doing it but you two are the only married people I can trust - I mean go to - here - in _NCIS_ - not in here," she finishes lamely, waves her hand to the locked room.

"Michelle–"

"_Special Agent McGee, do you ever fight with Reverend McGee_? No," she says as quickly as the cut-in had been, "forget I asked that, what you and Reverend Mother Mc–"

"_Stop it_."

His sharpness halts her. "Huh?"

"You're distancing. 'Special Agent Gibbs', 'Special Agent McGee', 'Reverend Mother McGee' and by the way she hates that title; you do this all the time when you're nervous. I'm Tim, your partner. My wife's Siobhan to you. Gibbs... well, he's stuck with being Gibbs but come out of your shell and talk to me." He gives her a long quarter-minute. "Or do you want to go back to your desk and cry some more?"

x

A flare of offense gives way to a smile. "Doctor Mal - Ducky's been giving you lessons."

"No, Shav has, and to answer your question 'no, we don't fight'; we're newlyweds and seven weeks is too short for the bloom to wear off."

She shakes her head, but can barely keep the smile; it disintegrates immediately. "We're newlyweds too, Jimmy and I - at least I felt so - and we didn't fight." She can't meet his eyes anymore, becomes particularly interested in a length of dust inches from her right high heeled slipper. "Until last night."

He lets ten seconds go by, fifteen, won't allow twenty for she seems determined to memorize that fleck of dust. "What happened?"

"It was my fault. He was stressed."

"It's not a matter of whose fault it was."

"But it was mine," she tells the dust. "He was stressed over I don't know what, I never found out but I wanted to talk about what was bothering him, what's _been _bothering him all this time." She presses her hand to her left cheek. "It was my fault," she insists to the dust.

He can't picture the moment without feeling appalled and angry for her. "He hit you?"

x

She looks up, shocked. "_No_! No, Jimmy would _never _hit me!" But the peak falls back into sadness. "But I kept badgering him about all the problems he's having and keeping bottled up inside and won't talk about with Dr. Gyves or your wife or me... We've had three 'couples counseling' sessions, he and I with Siobhan, but he won't open up, wouldn't get - won't talk about anything deep. Everything he says is so superficial, it's like he speaks _of _things but doesn't talk _about _them. It's like a laundry list of the things that're bothering him but his emotions are turned off. It's like he puts them behind a wall, not just to hide them from us but I think so _he _can't even get to them."

Five. Ten. "And?"

"And he did it again. To me. We were talking, I'm trying to draw him out and then his voice went all empty."

Five. Ten. "And?"

"And I lost it." She visibly strains for a smile but can't hold it. Sadness drowns her brown eyes instead. "I went all Vesuvius on him. Sometimes, like when I _really _want to curse but to keep it sounding clean, I switch to Chinese."

"I've noticed that too."

She shrugs, apparently no longer caring how many things she's revealed to him over the months without realizing it. "Jimmy doesn't know a bit of Chinese," she 'confesses', "except maybe Kung Hii Fatt Choi." Tim supposes his face asks the question. "Most people think it means 'Happy New Year' and we let them if they're nice. Well, last evening I taught him all the best words."

"And?"

"Well, when I wore down I got really stupid. I decided I'd teach him how it _feels _when someone doesn't communicate when the other wants to, so I kept it up all evening and night. Every word I said to him was in Chinese and he didn't know if I was saying 'dinner's ready' or 'fuck you'."

x

There are times, Tim suspects, when confining one's words to a foreign language can be helpful, a way to blow off steam without fighting. He half suspects that sometimes even Shav, for all her love, will say the 'sweetest' things to him in the most adoring tones that wouldn't translate well out of Gaelic.

But as a way of exacting revenge or making a point... "And so what happened?"

"He didn't."

"Didn't what?"

"Fuck me."

x

He's sorry he asked, but she doesn't let him cut in. "Jimmy and I are intimate every night. Every night. Unless one or both of us are drop dead exhausted and then we do it in the morning. Sometimes we do both."

"Always wondered why you're in such a good mood every morning," he quips, trying to ease her misery if only a little.

"You should try it."

"Why do you think I'm in such a good mood every morning?" But this accomplishes nothing. "So what happened?"

"He finally got mad at me and didn't look at me or talk to me for the rest of the night, slept with his back to me, got up, showered, shaved, dressed and we had breakfast in total silence. At least he was silent, I was all the way to begging. Then earlier today he hit me with that 'you kill 'em, we chill 'em' line and I thought maybe he's cooled off, we're back to normal and everything can be okay."

Tim doesn't ask 'what chill 'em line?', that's not important. Instead he repeats what's become his most useful word. "And?"

"I got careless, I was rushed, Gibbs was headed to Autopsy, I needed Eastergaard's Death Certificate for the bank to release her records, he was being silly and I snapped at him about it - in Chinese."

"Uh, oh."

"I was going to call him right back because he got mad at me, but then one thing led to another; we were busy, he was busy, I needed time when we could talk privately but I couldn't get _away_."

"So you..."

"A few minutes ago I tied into the camera in Autopsy. I saw he was alone, that Ducky wasn't there, so I called him. I could see him." Her face crumples, tears batter for release. His 'and' is softer. "And he - and he said - 'so you're back to English' - and he slammed the phone on me."

She turns and hides her face, unable to stop the tears.

Tim can't think of a thing to say.

xxx

When Gibbs, DiNozzo and David return to Headquarters, it's after 1500 and they arrive with an impressive collection of paperwork from Jubilee Eastergaard's office. The first thing Gibbs wants to know is "McGee, you sort out that computer yet?"

"Sort out?" McGee asks as he looks up from his screen. There hadn't been anything to sort out, unlike the drama of forty five minutes ago.

"Find out why Eastergaard offed herself."

"Er, no sir. There's a lot of material on her computer, but most of it is password protected and it seems to be a different pass each time. I've already broken seven distinct codes but she seems to have a unique password system."

"How unique?"

"Well, usually a code is a word or set of numbers or letters in a combination that are intended to appear random, but most key systems use an algorithm that searches for common patterns. For instance, there are fairly simple mnemonics that someone who knows a person well might be able to guess; names or relatives, nicknames, significant dates and so forth, which is why the average code can be broken if you just stick with it. Tut the DOD tends to be much more…." He glances up in time to see the lasers aimed at him. "Yes, boss. The point is that Eastergaard's codes are apparently random letters or numbers but I couldn't find anything in family, dates or anything else, nor did they follow typical DOD-inspired algorithms; I'd figured for a while the DOD could break itself but no soap. But then I realized the code is contained in her keyboard itself."

"What do you mean?"

"There are numbers and or letter combinations that are sequences one would normally … well, if you're using the right hand and started with your pinky on P, the next in the sequence would be O, I and U, and your thumb would naturally be resting on N; or else the left hand would be Q, W, E, R and C. Numbers would be 0, 9, 8, 7, H or 1, 2, 3, 4, D or 2, 3, 4, 5, F or 9, 8, 7, 6, G or L, K, J, H, B or–"

"I _get_ the picture, McGee."

"Why would she choose such a password system?" Ziva wonders. "Once the pattern is detected, all anyone would need to break the code and uncover all of her secrets is time, and not much of that."

"You said you got almost all the passwords," Gibbs presses the man.

"Well, just before you got back I found P, Q, L, A, M, Z, once again a simple straight line pattern."

"Maybe she was–"

"_GIBBS_!" the plasma screen yells in Abby's voice and everything on the right side of Tony's desk flies to the floor.

x

"She _promised_ she wouldn't _do _that anymore," Tony explodes as he picks up the papers and other detritus. Gibbs steps to the supposedly turned off plasma screen and uses the remote to activate it. The view presented is a downward angle of Abby's lab as seen through the ceiling security camera.

"Abby, you _promised_," Tony declares as he dumps the debris onto his desk.

"Sorry, Tony, but the front gate _finally_ got around to letting me know you were back. I'd had them promise to alert me as soon as you crossed the gate but could they do that one simple thing? Nooo, they had me–"

"Abs, what is it?" Gibbs has had enough of this day.

"Well, while you three were off playing all day at the Pentagon, I was finger deep in blood and DNA and other bodily fluids and I found some really interesting things."

"I'll be right down." He switches off the screen and, for a moment, looks like he's about to leave alone, but he waves his four field agents to follow. He'll hear the rest from McGee on the way.

xxx

Rather than use the elevator Gibbs decides he hasn't had enough exercise today and opts for the rear stairs. His team dutifully follows but Tony, next to last out after the women, stops before the door and turns to Tim as it closes, holds up his hands to block the agent.

Eight hours ago he'd come in in a bright and shiny mood, but guilt had only been hidden under layers of fake cheer, not wholly eradicated.

"Look, I'm sorry. I don't know how many more times I can say it."

McGee doesn't want to get into this again, not after what he's just been through with Michelle Palmer, but DiNozzo has to understand - again - where he stands. "Well, Tony, in this case 'seventy times seven' just isn't enough."

"That's not fair. I've been apologizing for two whole weeks."

"God has His 'Unpardonable Sin', and I have mine."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means you can say anything you want about me and it'll just roll off, but you attacked my _wife_."

"I didn't _attack _her," he declares, offended, but must concede the word isn't the issue. "But I didn't mean to hurt her; either of you. Come on, Probie, it's _me_. You know me, sometimes I just go–"

"I thought I knew you, but the old Tony had standards, especially where married women are concerned. Neither of us wants to know this new Tony. You and I will continue to work on the same team unless you want a transfer, but beyond that..." He shakes his head, tired of the situation, tired of the apologies, tired of everything, even of the Palmers' drama. "I'm not the one you need to apologize to."

"I keep trying. She won't accept. For a priest–"

"'Verily I say unto you, whatsoever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven: and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.' Matthew 18:18."

'This is what comes from marrying a priest,' Tony thinks but doesn't dare say. Things are bad enough between them. Still, "That's a pretty big penalty. Are you saying she'll never forgive me? That she'll keep this over me forever?"

Tim shakes his head. The man never does get it. "This isn't about Absolution. It never was. If you went to her for Absolution she might well give it - if you're sorry, but we're talking about personal forgiveness - you and her. Personal forgiveness involves trust and she doesn't trust you anymore. Neither do I."

"What can I do?"

"Well, for starters you can atone."

"I have."

"Not yet you haven't." He reaches past Tony and pulls open the door, doesn't care if DiNozzo steps out of the way or not.


	6. Formulas

Chapter Six  
>Formulas<p>

"What've you got, Abs?" Gibbs asks the woman when his tardy team members finally deign to show up over two minutes late. They could've brought a 'Caf-Pow!' for the time of their detour. Mind on the case, he'd forgotten and Abby had been put out until Michelle had volunteered to get a cup - and _she'd _beaten the men back to the lab.

Abby's a skeleton. Her too tight, long-sleeve black pullover and tighter black pants have anatomically correct bones in front and back. The only things missing are skull, hand bones and foot bones, and this makes the image even more unsettling, so much so the agents do their best to ignore her attire.

'If DiNozzo says one word about her going on a diet,' Gibbs thinks, ready to give the latecomer a reason to be on time in the future.

The six surround the large white table, upon which are two Evidence bags, one contains what's left of a broken pink bra, nippleless with heart-shaped holes and seemingly barely enough material for the 36D's it's labeled for. Gibbs admits the garment probably isn't much tested, as it needn't perform its function for very long. Now its burst in two places from the force of Eastergaard's body-rupturing impact.

The color and style-matched panties contain even less material because they're designed with no material at the crotch. Both garments had torn asunder upon impact and, with little exception to show their natural color, they're caked in dried blood.

"How hard did she hit?" DiNozzo muses, looking at the burst clothes and recalling the body's devastation. The woman had hit full frontal to the cement, her every bone had shattered, every organ ruptured, her sides literally blown out.

"That's easy," Abby the skeleton declares, mind not quite on the question, leaving her brain to calculate freely. "Jubilee Eastergaard was 5 foot 10, 153 pounds and fell 558 feet for 5.889 seconds with an acceleration of 32.174 feet per second squared. The formula's simple, S equals 1/2 a t^2. She fell 558 feet, we'll ignore air resistance because I didn't see her fall, if she turned or went the whole way front first - I hope not because that's a horrible sight, the cement jumping up at you like that. 1/2 (32.174) 5.889^2, her speed at impact was 189.472686 feet per second. She's 153 pounds, so she hit the cement face down full body - _splat _- with a force of 85,374 foot-pounds - roughly."

"Sorry I asked." She had that precision for a 'rough' estimate?

She turns to him. "Sorry, Tony, but I'm in full forensics mode, so don't ask a question that requires an automatic answer."

"That was automatic?" His vision jerks in time to a sharp pain in the back of his head. "Thank you, boss."

Gibbs had given him his own splat, this one to the back of the head. He'd been saving it for a smart-ass comment, knowing DiNozzo wouldn't keep him waiting long.

x

"Get on with it, Abs."

"Getting on with it, oh mount of merriment. As I'm sure you couldn't help noticing, these are the last clothes Jubilee Eastergaard wore this morning."

"I noticed," Gibbs assures her in characteristically bland tones. "Why was she wearing them? Is this what women wear for killing themselves these days?"

Abby almost falls for it until she sees the glint in Gibbs' eyes, that and the fact that, despite cryptic notes written on computer screens, NCIS never considers suicides as such, but investigates them as murders until proven otherwise.

"Believe me, Gibbs, a woman doesn't wear this to commit suicide. She may feel she's died and gone to heaven in them - no offense to the missus, McGee,"

"None taken."

"but she doesn't kill herself in them. And I also did a blood test; her blood alcohol level was nada point zilch."

"What scale was that on?"

"Don't worry, Tony, they'll never use it on you."

"Ouch, full body blow."

"You deserve it." McGee's wife may forgive DiNozzo some day, but it'll take a lot longer before she will. Tony had laid the rumor of the priest's pregnancy upon her shoulders, and because of it she'd slapped one of her best friends.

x

Gibbs is rapidly running short of patience. "Can you get back on track?"

"Getting back on track, oh silver Zorro. Like I said, her body was a drug and alcohol free zone, though I did swabs on her panties and the samples Jimmy brought me and conclude that A: she wasn't alone before she died and B: she wasn't bored."

"What, Palmer's delivering sperm to you?"

She'd answer Tony's sally but Michelle's reply, delivered in Chinese, is one she suspects would be more devastating if not hidden from Gibbs and from virgin ears. She can see that only Ziva interpreted the words properly and had schooled her face to immobility.

"Any hits on DNA or anything else?" Gibbs presses.

She gives the chief investigator a look as though to say 'we've had this conversation before' because they have. "Come back tomorrow afternoon. I _can _tell you that over 70 percent are still motile, meaning they were knocking on her door within an hour or two before she died."

"But can you tell if she was alone _when_ she died?"

"Nope, not with what you brought me. Even the Duckman wasn't sure - her body was so shattered it virtually exploded. The only things of her that weren't ruptured, shattered or otherwise destroyed were what she left in the apartment."

DiNozzo had seen the body often enough to marvel that the MEs could get as much from it as they did. "So who has sex and then jumps off a balcony in her bra and panties?"

"I usually wear a red negligee," Michelle quips, confident the man won't pick up on this one, but she shrinks away from Gibbs glare.

"I thought you'd wear that Vampirella outfit and turn into a bat," DiNozzo prods, but his answer is again Gibbs' hand hard to the back of his head.

x

Particularly gory deaths seem to need the crutch of bad humor and this one is in a rare class. They've only had three other long fall deaths from buildings, but 43 floors is definitely the longest and there's not much intact for Ducky and Palmer to sort through.

But for Gibbs this is too much. Their victim is MAGTF-CE's XO and if her death is related to her job, the consequences for the Marine Corps, and possibly America's entire defense strategy, can be catastrophic. "Focus, people. Ziva."

David knows he still holds the question open and she doesn't want it. "Well, choice of clothing to a suicide is sometimes significant... but I suspect Ducky would be the best selection for a psychological autopsy."

"Busy with the physical one."

"All right. If I were in only a pink nippleless sex bra and crotchless panties–"

"Special Agent DiNozzo would be picking the lock of your door," Michelle quips.

"_HEY_." When DiNozzo feels he has their chastised attention, he finishes with "I'd already be inside."

"Then you would be the one going out the window," Ziva assures him.

"In pink bra and panties?" McGee immediately regrets the shudderable image.

"You're _all _going out in a line if I don't hear some good theories soon." No one dares mention that the lab windows, aside from being overhead, are a tight squeeze or that the windows in Operations don't open. He hadn't implied he'd open them. "McGee."

"I'm, er, going over the lobby security footage."

"What did you find?"

"Isolating those who went into the lobby and were stopped by the Concierge to be announced, five men arrived between midnight and prior to Major Eastergaard's fall and left the building after but before MPDC arrived."

"You eliminating the women, McGee?"

"There weren't any; not that were visitors from midnight on."

"Why only since midnight?" If the killer spent the evening, they won't know it.

"That's what we got." Gibbs doesn't hide how dissatisfied he is. "I have a call in to the Security company but I _will _call back."

"Yes you will."

"Either way, I can't run facial recognition on them, the film's grainy and the faces are too small. Camera's too far away for that class of equipment, it should have been installed right on the desk but someone probably thought he was getting his money's worth with a close up camera set to view the entire lobby."

"Then we'll go it the old-fashioned way. You and Palmer go back there and interview the staff."


	7. Gibbsdar

Chapter Seven  
>Gibbsdar<p>

"Ziva, anything out of the ordinary in Eastergaard's bank records?" Gibbs asks when he, DiNozzo and David return to the bullpen. Palmer had gotten them but his cursory exam a few hours ago didn't reveal much. Eastergaard hadn't lived beyond her reasonable means in years.

"I shall let you know, but she was an intelligent woman. If she made money doing anything other than her job, she would not sock the funds in her Christmas Club account."

He wonders what she would do with it if she had it. Ignoring the weapons' redistribution charge - allegation - she does work for CE and knows where everyone is and where they're going. Marine deployment and tactical information is a lucrative asset, but he's not ready to crucify her based upon a long dive and a cryptic note.

"I'm going to see Ducky. DiNozzo," he calls out as he leaves his desk for the elevator, commanding en passant, "dive into Eastergaard's activities both on and off duty for the past six months, tell me about her."

"You got it, boss," Tony assures. Only when the elevator takes Gibbs away does he let his confident smile crash. The on- and off-duty details of a person's life, even for six months, is a massive amount of information, especially to dive into while already on overtime. He can only hope Ducky feels like talking.

Gibbs, not quite to the elevator, pulls out his cell phone halfway through the first ring. "Yeah, it's Gibbs."

Moments later he's back at the bullpen. "DiNozzo, David, drop everything. Conference in MTAC - now."

xxx

Gibbs, along with Supervisory Special Agents Melanie Kelman, Fred Higgins and Kevin Lamb and their respective teams - eleven additional agents - take seats in MTAC before Director Shepherd. Jimmy Palmer and Abby Sciuto wait with her in the bay until the last of them are settled. The Forensic Scientist's pseudo-skeleton glows green in the dim room but she evidently doesn't notice. She steps away from the Director and Deputy Medical Examiner and claims the final seat in the back row, a disconcerting image of glowing bones with her human head and hands.

As soon as she's settled Shepherd steps before the group. "I'm sorry to have to tell you like this that Christopher Drakis, Special Agent Afloat aboard the Aircraft Carrier USS Eisenhower, was killed today in an explosion at his home."

She sees the distress shoot through the assembled Field Agents as, at a silent gesture to the technicians manning the controls to her right, the main screen behind her alights.

The scene is an areal view, the legend banner across the screen's bottom shows the feed came from ZNN. A dozen emergency vehicles surround a suburban crater where once a home had stood. Wisps of smoke mark the spot, but the burnt fragments of the house covers the land.

The scene is only more horrific for the silence.

"So far no one knows why Special Agent home exploded but as he had no family it's believed he was alone. Special Agent Higgins."

"Director" is all the man will trust himself to say, and even so his voice is gruff with emotion.

"Your team will head this case. The Eisenhower is docked in Norfolk, it berthed yesterday, the crew is on Shore Leave."

"We'll get the answers." Higgins growls.

xx

"What've you got, Ducky?" Gibbs asks as he strides into the sterile white chamber, the question finished before the doors have fully opened.

On the first table is the shattered, nude body of Major Jubilee Eastergaard. Gibbs knows there'll soon be another corpse here, probably a well burnt one. He shoves it out of his mind. Not his case; _this _is.

On the second table, each encased in its own thin plastic Evidence bag, is every loose piece of paper found in the woman's apartment. On the final table, taller for their bulk, is every book, magazine, newspaper and so forth. Gibbs can recognize, at the top of the stack of hardcover books, the woman's three personal journals and decides that they'll be more useful than any other paper in the room.

"Well, Jethro," Ducky commences, and Gibbs can read his friend well enough to know his thoughts are divided, "our unfortunate guest came to an abrupt halt following a forty-three story fall," he turns to Eastergaard, looking beyond her smashed face, "but what were you doing before you went over that rail?"

"What does she say she was doing?" he asks, his eyes on the next table.

"Oh, I've had no opportunity to look through her papers. However, as I'm sure Abby's told you, we found no gross physical ailments, no indications of organ - such as they are - damage from oral, nasal or intravenous drug use. I also found no indication of long-term or excessive alcohol consumption in - well, in what's left of her liver.

"So you're saying she wasn't despondent or guilty of anything medical that'd lead her to jump."

"I can say no such thing. Thus far all I may say is that you shall have to seek motive outside the lady's body."

"What about her dating habits?"

"Well, there the psychological autopsy will hopefully be more revealing, when I may get to it, that is. I shall soon receive another body - or rather I should say the parts of same - whose Cause of Death will be even more pressing. I can only say what you already know, that the Major was 'dating' prior to death, but as to whom - well, I shall leave that for you to tell me."

"Abby's found no hits on the DNA test," Gibbs tells him. In fact, she is not yet at a point where she may get hits of any kind. That'll be tomorrow.

"I fear that your physical results must depend upon the laws of physics."

"Yeah. Let me know if you have anything."

"I shall send Dr. Palmer up with the good news."

"Where is he, by the way?"

"Dinner. I imagine with his lady."

Gibbs knows she's not. McGee and Palmer have already left for Eastergaard's condo and they'd better get back before nightfall with answers. "Just as soon keep your Palmer away from mine during business hours."

Ducky doesn't answer. Neither man is happy with the couple's increasing distress or how it's affecting their work, nor do they want to involve themselves in matters which they hope will remain private.

xxx

Alone with Tony in the bullpen, Ziva notes that his high spirits from earlier this morning have folded back into the somber mood that he's been carrying for the past fortnight. She comes out from behind her desk and crosses the bullpen and though he's facing her she knows that he doesn't see her, not even when she stands directly before his desk. "A Mossad Officer displaying this level of attentiveness would not last long."

"I'd rather not, thanks."

She's not even certain he's responding to her words or if he even heard them. "A sheckle for your thoughts."

"What?" For the first time he focuses on her. "Oh, I was thinking."

"About the case?"

"Not exactly."

"Well, I will say it's good to see the old Tony back."

"What old Tony?"

"The sackcloth and ashes Tony. I was just growing used to him."

"I'm not 'sackcloth and ashes Tony'. Not... exactly."

"But still feeling guilty."

"And wishing I could do something about it."

"Well, in such circumstances I would direct one such as yourself to the Chaplain oh _yes, she_ is the one you are guilty over!"

"I'm not guilty over-"

She comes down, hands flat upon his desk so she won't hit him. "You broke into McGee's mail, you jumped to the wrong delusion and you told how many people, starting a rumor that the woman is pregnant and got so two _months _before she and McGee got married, making their non-existant child a bas–!"

"_I know what I did_!." Tony's explosive hand slam on the desk and atypical near shout turn heads throughout Operations. Rather than challenge the on-lookers, he drops his voice to a confessional whisper. "I just don't know how to kill it."

"A rumor is immortal, Tony. Even when no one spreads it any longer it lives on in the memories of all who heard it."

"I don't know how to stop it. For every one I catch and correct, two more take it up. The thing has a life of its own. Now McGee won't tolerate me and Siobhan hates me."

"Chaplain McGee does not hate you. I have it on very good authority that in all of Christiandom she actively _hates _only one man and for the very best of reasons but you are not that man. But you do have a very hard road to hoe."

"That's row to hoe."

She leans closer. "I do not believe that at this point in your life you should be thinking of correcting me."

xx

"DiNozzo," Gibbs calls as he passes the man, "what did you find out from Eastergaard's family and friends?"

"I called her uncle and cousin in Georgia, they're in fairly... reasonably close communication with her, enough to doubt, as Lieutenant Almonk did, that she committed suicide. Same reason, too much to live for with her promotion on the near horizon. Others I spoke to hadn't heard from her as recently but also said she just wasn't the type."

"What 'type' of person is prone to suicide?" Ziva asks, but neither man wants to try to answer.

"David, what about her finances?"

"I have still found no indication that she was living notably above a Marine Major's means."

Gibbs will be very happy if he can put the suspicion of arms redirection to final death; the theory had never sat well in his gut. He looks forward to hearing what McGee and Palmer have gleaned from such the condo staff and such neighbors as may be home at this hour.

xxx

Abby looks up from her microscope when the rapid beeps from her main door announce Gibbs' arrival. "I was afraid you were going to be late."

"Late for what."

"Bed talk," she announces, picking up a set of latex gloves, securing the right one on her hand with a snap and enjoying his half-apprehensive look. She puts on the left glove, crosses the lab to her white table and breaks the seal on an extra-large Evidence bag, draws a large light blue sheet from the bag and spreads it across the table.

"You always know exactly when I have something, your Gibbsdar working at full power."

He doesn't want to hear about Gibbsdar. "What'd you find?"

"Actually, Ducky - and Jimmy and I, found it by testing what they found in her body and _I _did on the sheets. Spermies have a variable but collectively predictable life span and you can tell how old they are by the percentage of motile-"

"Spermies?"

"These swimmers lost their tails," she continues, satisfied by his expression, "at a rate that, comparing both sets, they were deposited very close to the time she died. Very, very close."

"How close?"

"Well, for starters what's here," she says, waving her hand over the spread sheet, "are all dead, they only live for anywhere from 20 minutes to a few hours, meaning they all died yesterday but the extent of breakdown gives me a lot of clues." She leaves the table, goes to the computer and calls up a graph on the monitor. Gibbs only looks at it long enough to see he prefers to have her say what the lines on the time chart mean.

"The deeper they go the better chance they have of lasting longer, I'll spare you the details-"

"Thank you."

"And just tell you that all I wanted were samples fron her vaginal canal. Spermies-" she glances up at him but sees he's not taking the bait again, "live about a week if they get deep enough, that's why you can conceive days after intercourse; well, not you but I've gotta watch it which is why I use a spermacide of my own design, one hundred and one percent effective -" he won't take this one either so she gives up.

"Anywho, taking both sets and comparing the now different life spans and calculating backward, she essentially went from having fun straight to taking her swan dive."

"So she wasn't alone when she died?" He recalls he's already asked this question, hadn't gotten an answer that satisfied him.

"I can't say that precisely, but not a lot of time passed."


	8. Resignation

Chapter Eight  
>Resignation<p>

Progress is slow by Gibbs' standards, and the agents' attentions are kept focused with increasing difficulty. It's hard to lose one's own, even if not personally known, but the team tries to push aside this loss and concentrate upon their own tasks. Higgins and his team have Drakis, they have Eastergaard.

The human body, however, does need food and occasional rest. Thus it is that Tony is on four, coming back from his dinner in the Café when he sees Siobhan McGee down the corridor ahead of him.

At first he's mildly surprised. Today's Monday, not the woman's normal Tuesday workday at headquarters, but her purpose here is all too obvious - grief counseling for those who knew Drakis better than he - but he has his one reasons for wanting to speak to the priest and considers this opportunity quite a lucky break.

Seen from behind, it's easy to recognize the redhead, her black calf-length skirt and light blue back-button shirt are as much a uniform to her as any Sailor's or Marine's would be to the agents. The only difference is that they don't wear inch-and-a-quarter high stiff wrap-around white collars about their throats, not that he can see that part of her garment past her long, fiery hair.

He takes no particular notice of the suited man who walks beside her, but he catches up with both of them at the elevator bank. "Siobhan?"

She turns, a smile on her face, but it freezes when she sees him. Her expression doesn't change; to her companion she probably appears as pleasant and easy-going as she had a moment ago but there's no friendliness in her eyes.

x

"Sorry, I mean 'Mother McGee'."

"Good afternoon, Agent DiNozzo." Her neutral tone is outwardly casual, with a friendliness that could fool a casual stranger, but it's the same one she might use on meeting that stranger rather than a man she's known for almost a year. She glances at her companion, a man of about forty in a crisp grey suit, the plastic ID tag clipped to his jacket pocket proclaiming him a Visitor.

"Reverend John Grant, Special Agent Anthony DiNozzo." She gives Tony the barest of glances before her eyes shift past his head. "Reverend Grant is the new NCIS Chaplain. I'm bringing him up to speed on the job. Of course, this is a particularly stressful day to begin."

Tony virtually feels his face fall off. "N-new Chaplain?"

"Good to meet you, Agent DiNozzo," Grant says, holding out his hand. "I look forward to getting to know you."

"You too," Tony says, grips his hand, shakes it automatically.

"Did you know Agent Drakis well?" Grant asks, thinking that the reason for Tony's distress.

"No, no I never met him. Sh – Mother O' – McGee, could we have a word?"

"This really isn't a good time," she says with that same faux-casual tone, as though they're the ones who've just met.

"Please."

For a long moment she looks like she'll refuse, but then she turns to Grant. "I'm sorry."

"No, please, I understand. This is a hard time for all."

x

Siobhan turns, leads DiNozzo away from the elevator and a measured forty feet further, stops and turns. Her face is placid enough for anyone who would pass them in the hallway heading to or from dinner but her emerald eyes are glacial.

"New Chaplain?" is all Tony can say.

Her voice is low enough so no passerby could hear but the tone makes her glare seem warm and loving. "I _told_ you I have to resign. Please don't insult _either_ of us by pretending you don't know why."

"Siobhan–" her emerald eyes instantly sharpen, hard as those stones. "Mother McGee, I'm sorry, I never imagined it would come to this."

"You 'never imagined', when I told you two weeks ago _exactly_ what would happen? It's especially bad it must happen now, when my focus should be on your grieving colleagues. They are the ones who need me right now." Her brogue is so sharp it could draw his blood, and he suspects the priest has considered it.

"I'm sorry. I know I screwed up, I've been trying to fix it, to catch up to the rumor–"

"You know, Anthony DiNozzo, what the worst part is of your reading our private mail, Timmy's and mine, jumping to a conclusion and spreading that hurtful rumor instead of coming to us? What makes it worse than what Charlie Morley did to me, worse than what Edward Samson or Thomas Trivillot did?"

She nearly raises her voice, but hushing it makes it no less biting. "It's because I never trusted any of them - but I trusted _you_ and you betrayed me, humiliated me before all of Enkiss, made it _impossible_ for me to do my job."

"I'm sorry. I swear to _God_ I'm sorry. If I could take it all back I would. If standing on the Parade Ground and telling everyone in the Navy Yard what a bastard I am could–"

"You always go for the dramatic, but this time it can't work." She takes a deep breath, holds it, and when she lets it free she strives for a placid tone; it's more of a sham than any he's ever heard. "Agent DiNozzo, I'm going to walk away now, and I would really appreciate it if you would walk in the other direction."

He opens his mouth to say something, anything that could fix this, but she's gone.

xxx

"You two find out anything at Eastergaard's place?" Gibbs demands before McGee and Palmer can cross the space between DiNozzo and David's desks.

"The IDs of the five people on the footage check out," McGee answers for them. "All were confirmed guests of tenants. We spoke to the tenants; one was a houseguest, one was a sitter, the other three were friends of off-shift tenants who see them in the mornings for various reasons. The timings of arrivals and departures check out."

'They would,' Gibbs thinks, disgusted. He'd actually hoped one of them had acted suspiciously or that his story wouldn't check out. Even without a positive ID from the pathetic excuse for a security camera, it would have provided some focus, some lead to follow.

"Boss," DiNozzo cuts in, hanging up his phone, grateful to have progress in the case - even if it's this - to distract him from guilt. "Marigrand and Kan Xiao are still sitting on Matt Burns in I-2."

Gibbs bites back his initial retort. He'd sent the agents to bring in Burns hours ago but had decided to let him stew while he tracked leads that'd break the man's story. Undoubtedly the Alpha Shift agents are getting tired of the overtime, so he might as well go down and cut them loose.

His love for the loud, double-talkative self-aggrandizer is on a level with mold infesting one of his boats, but right now Burns' outrageous theory is the only thing they've found that reflects - possibly - on Jubilee Eastergaard's supposed suicide note. They must now learn whether evidence lies in the real world or just in Burns' fertilized imagination.

The sun has already set; the window overlooking the Yard north to the Capital Mall is black. "DiNozzo, you're with me, everyone else in Observation. Palmer, you got that answer for me?"

She's relieved she got the email from a contact in Justice while in the car. "Yes, sir. The answer is 'no'."

He only nods and leads the team to the elevator, with no desire to explain the question. If anyone wants to know, let him ask.

xx

Before Tony DiNozzo meets Matt Burns, the web streamer who he considers to hide behind the pseudonym of 'Beltway Burns', he's already classified him as a five foot nine man with a six foot mouth, mountainous ego and a rampant imagination that spans light years.

On introduction, DiNozzo immediately changes his opinion. The man's more like five eight.

"Sit down," Gibbs commands in his 'I'm out of patience with you already' tone. It's late in a very unproductive day, a day topped off with the death of a fellow Agent whose investigation is assigned to others, other media has released Eastergaard's name and ID based on Burns' viral exclusive and the case has just grown harder.

x

"A bit lacking in social graces, aren't you?" Burns asks as he takes a seat, apparently determined to play interviewer with the interrogator.

"You'd know, if you did research."

"I've missed recording this evening's webcast. Your agents pulled me out this afternoon but I've been sitting here for hours working on a brand new angle."

"Run a rerun," he keeps his tone bland, ignores the implied threat. "Your audience will think it's a conspiracy."

"Why am I here?"

Gibbs knows the man's been informed three times. "You ignored a request to withhold Jubilee Eastergaard's name when reporting the woman who fell from her balcony this morning."

"'Pending notification of next-of-kin'. The woman had no next-of-kin, she was an unmarried only child whose mother died ten years ago and her father at least eight."

"There was a reason we wanted the name withheld."

"We don't like it," DiNozzo says from his gargoyle's position behind and above Burns' left shoulder, "when al Q and the Taliban get word of a sizable hole in our National Defense."

"Your command structure problems are your own. I represent John Q. Public and his right to know."

"Know from who?"

"Whom and forget it, Gibbs, my sources are protected."

"Only when it'd take someone other than Rod Serling to find them," DiNozzo counters.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Burns doesn't take his eyes off Gibbs, ignores the agent looming over him.

"Your sources, if they're breathing," Gibbs says in his soft-but-deadly voice, "are as reliable as chewing gum wrappers under movie theater seats."

x

"We checked your 'information'," DiNozzo says from above Burns' right shoulder. "Major Eastergaard was never suspected of arms shipments to Iraq." He's never minded lying to dirt bags and Burns must come up to rank that high. "Every one of her transactions, in the days when she was responsible for overseas weapons shipments, was accounted for." This isn't a lie, but it is a stretch; five teams couldn't track hundreds of shipments to that region in a few hours but if he can make Burns unsure of his position it'll help the inevitable break.

"Just proves you people didn't do your job."

"Can't prove, or in this case disprove, a negative, huh Burns?" DiNozzo says, leaning close to the man's left ear.

"Who gave you that initial information?"

"Sorry, Gibbs, my lips are sealed."

"That'd actually be an improvement," DiNozzo quips.

"In that case I can leave,"

"Sit down," Gibbs tells him so definitively Burns reseats himself without objection. "You're here because you made certain claims that you said resulted in a woman's death. Now you're not being charged with anything–"

"Yet," DiNozzo cuts in from his gargoyle perch.

"But if you do know what happened to Major Eastergaard, you're going to insist we investigate, so you owe it to your fans to point us in the right direction."

x

DiNozzo is surprised by this maneuver, and expects the others in Observation aren't better prepared. He'd planned to back up one of Gibbs' sweatbox interrogations, but the boss deftly switched responsibility for what Burns wants onto him, removing the chance for the blogger to employ his frequently used 'authorities refuse to do anything' ploy. He decides to hang back until he can pick up the flow of this new stream.

"Jubilee Eastergaard was a GCE Captain in Iraq," Burns finally says when the silence becomes so empty he needs to fill it. "She was charged with using her position to route arms and supplies to connections sympathetic to Saddam Hussein where they would ultimately wind up in his hands."

Gibbs isn't entirely surprised by the charge, though he doubts its validity more completely now. The Ground Combat Element consists of infantry, armor and artillery, as well as special units such as scouts or Recon Battalions, snipers, and forward air controllers, and this sounds too convenient. Like a jigsaw puzzle with a rogue piece, it doesn't fit well. If Eastergaard were guilty of using her influence within that position, she'd have to be an idiot.

"But where'd the money go?" He'd been to her apartment this morning - it feels like much more than a dozen hours ago. She was apparently living within a Major's means, not off the money she'd've gotten if she'd played so dirty.

"That's for you guys to figure out."

"Oh, we will. Question is, how did you figure it out?"

"What?"

"Secret like that comes to an Internet blogger? And at just about the time when she's being considered as Executive Officer?"

"I have many sources. Word comes to me from all directions."

"Which direction did this come from?"

"Sorry, Gibbs, that's privileged information."

"It's not."

"Yes, it–"

"The protection of sources for legitimate News Organizations doesn't apply to independent parties. You're not a recognized News Service, you're off the grid." He'd had Palmer double check on this, she'd given him the answer just before they'd come down for this meeting. "Now, your source have a name?"

x

"You're losing recording time," DiNozzo the gargoyle reminds him. "If you go for a grandstand play, going behind bars to protect your 'source', your subscribers will listen to a _lot _of reruns."

The moment drags on, obviously Burns is trying to hold out for the honor of journalistic integrity as long as he can.

DiNozzo cups his hands before his mouth to mangle his voice. "We continue our reruns of Classic Broadcasts this evening. Here's an oldie from 1988 - 'The Nixon Years; Watergate Revisited'."

"All _right_." His next words drop.

"Come again?"

"Mark Johnston," he repeats, sounding defeated.

"He was your original source?"

Burns nods. "He came to me with the story in the beginning-"

"When Eastergaard was being considered for Executive Officer?" Burns nods. "And then again?"

"A few weeks ago."

"When she's up for promotion?"

"Neither the Corps nor NCIS had broken the case. What would you do?"

"I'd look to see if there was a case to break, not hound the woman."

"Well if she's not guilty, why did she jump?"

xx

"Boss, I've checked and rechecked," McGee tells Gibbs when he and DiNozzo exit Interrogation. DiNozzo gestures toward the Interrogation Room, his eyes on Ziva and Michelle, his message clear: Get Burns out of here and, if possible, lose him on a beltway. "Not only is there no record that she'd done anything," McGee continues uninterrupted, "but the internal probe determined she couldn't have. At the time she didn't have the authority or resources. NCIS records of the case clear her."

"Johnston was trying to clear the way for Hedberg."

"Looks like it."

"All right." He turns to take in DiNozzo. "Bring him in."

Fortunately he chooses that moment to glance at his watch, but he decides not to voice his thoughts. 'Why didn't anyone tell me we were so deep into Beta shift?' "Tomorrow. Go home," he tells the relieved men and the women who bring Burns out of the Interrogation chamber.

No one waits long enough to risk his change of mind.

x

When they're gone, Gibbs flips open his cell phone, presses the second speed code.

/Yes, Jethro, I've been waiting for your call./

"Why wait, Duck?"

/Because I presume you are calling for Ms. Eastergaard's psychological autopsy, yet at the end of the day it is still not complete./

"All I want to know is about charges raised that she diverted weapons to Saddam."

/A subject that caused her many a sleepless night./

"Her journals?"

/No, I've yet to get to them, they are still in Autopsy. No, this is from official correspondence between herself, her CO Colonel Varley and the Investigators. The then-Captain was not reticent in her expressions of outrage over the charges./

"Anything to them?"

/She maintained - quite vehemently - that there was not, but as you know not only is it deucedly difficult to prove a negative but this is from her own thoughts and therefore what is written is a kind of mental shorthand. In the Captain's case it seems your Mister Burns was then arguing for an application of the principle of Respondeat Superior or 'Let the Master Answer'./

"She was in charge, so she was responsible even if her hands were clean."

/And her heart, Jethro. She was quite explicit in her position on the late dictator, his practices, his ethics, his morality and his parentage./

Gibbs smiles; that portion undoubtedly made for some lurid reading. "But it does explain her note."

/I can think of three sets of circumstances that can be extended sufficiently to account for the phrasing of that missive./

"What ones?"

/I shall tell you when I have sufficiently narrowed the spread of alternatives./

"Matt Burns insists she's guilty."

/Well, the man's journalistic objectivity has always left much - copious amounts, in fact - to be desired. I should give very limited credence to his specious speculations./

Gibbs loves talking with his old friend, especially in the early night when he has nothing but time. It's like attending College, except less expensive. "When will you have a completed headshrink?"

/Jethro, please,/ the man sounds suitably pained, yet Gibbs hears a feminine chuckle in the background. /Special Agent Drakis' body was delivered this evening, he'd been in the center of an explosion followed by a conflagration. Leaving off your uninspired attempt at levity, as I am presently pulling into my driveway, I should expect I will be obliged to balance a Psychological Autopsy with a Medical one - tomorrow./

This time Gibbs doesn't get the chance to hang up first.


	9. Emerald Eyes

Chapter Nine  
>Emerald Eyes<p>

Tim McGee switches on his apartment light, tries to keep from staggering to his desk, empties his pants and jacket pockets into the tray beside his computer, steps past it to his closed bedroom door, twists the knob and collides with the wood to a loud thump.

He bounces back several inches, surprised awake. This door hasn't been locked since he'd moved in five years ago. Even when Abby Sciuto had hid - unsuccessfully - from Mikel Mawher way back when she'd been stalked the first time by the late madman she hadn't locked it; he'd found it open when he'd returned from his car.

Wide awake now, he calls through the wood. "Shav, are you in there?" He feels a little silly calling to his wife through the wood; the lock is only lockable, without a key, from the inside - and he doesn't have a key. What he really means by his concerned tone is something between 'are you okay?' and 'why did you lock the door?'

"No," her voice filters through the barrier. He can virtually hear her grin.

'Okay, stupid question, time to get serious,' he thinks and asks the first of the bypassed questions.

"I'm fine." He gives her ten seconds to elaborate, then jumps to the second. "I'm not decent."

This one derails him completely and it takes several moments to get back onto the tracks. "Not de... Shav, we've been married for two months, I've seen parts of you that _you _haven't seen."

"Like what?" she asks in musically coy voice.

"Like that star beauty mark."

The lock clicks off, the door swings inward and Green Lantern steps out. "What beauty mark?"

x

Being confronted by a female Green Lantern in classic costume - he'd think 'Katma Tui' if her face were at least as red as her hair - if he could rip his eyes off the maskless green, black and white full body costume that hugs her even more closely than he can - not that he doesn't frequently and affectionately try...

He must pull the exploded shards of his mind back from many kilometers away. This time he's quite awake - and unsure he hasn't stepped into the wrong universe - again. "I'll tickle it next time I can get to it." It's not possible in this ultra-affectionate costume. "Shav, what are you wearing?"

She eyes him sympathetically - the three inch heels of her emerald boots have her eye-to-eye with him. "You poor man; if you can't remember then you need that weekend more than I do."

"No, I mean why are you wearing it?"

"Not for the reason _you're _thinking. I want to keep it intact for Memorial Day Weekend, so _no _'Katma Tui versus the Weaponers of Qward on the Planet of the Sex Slaves'."

He's stunned to open-mouthed silence again. He hadn't been thinking any such thing, but now that she's pasted the image into his mind... "The Greater East Coast Comic Art Convention," he finally remembers. He'd ordered the tickets weeks ago and they'd both negotiated time off for their first set-aside weekend since their honeymoon.

Last year's Convention had been dramatic and had started such an emotional roller-coaster year that he can never forget it and he's been hoping this year's event will be reasonably dull by comparison.

Isolating just the romantic aspect of his life which that weekend had irrevocably altered, he'd broken off a renewed romantic relationship with Abby; begun - and ended - a whirlwind relationship with Zee; resumed his old relationship with Shav - an even more whirlwind-like one, had gotten married and now he's standing outside their bedroom talking to Korugar's Green Lantern of Space Sector 1417.

"End of the month," she 'reminds' him, "and if Jethro reneges on your weekend off I'll have Milton Gyves declare you unfit for duty, clothe you as Sinestro and cuff you as prisoner for transport to Wrigley's Prison Planet."

"Mixed reference. That's 'Wrigley's Pleasure Planet' from Star Trek."

"One man's prison is another woman's pleasure."

He _really _doesn't want to address that.

x

"I spoke with Tony after dinner," he tells her instead. "He seems like _he_ wants to jump out of a window."

"Oh, I do hope not," she says, her brogue thickening in intensity as she brushes a lock of her red hair aside with white gloved hand. The green LED in the ring on her middle finger isn't lit, power conserved until the Convention. "That's _no _part of the plan."

"He says he met your replacement."

"That poor man," she says sympathetically. "I truly hate to have to do this, but Anthony will come out of it with a valuable lesson learned, a life lesson taught in a few weeks of well-deserved guilt. And I did _not _lie; John Grant will make a fine Chaplain for NCIS. We've been going through the illusion for too long that one lone Episcopal priest can handle the variety of denominations represented by your wildly eclectic gathering."

"I'm surprised it took this long for things to move."

"It's going to take longer, because Grant and I are going to be _it _for the while. He'll handle the Methodists, I'll take the Episcopalians, _and between us _we'll take everyone else." Her emerald eyes hold no humor and the growing sharpness of her usually melodious brogue testifies, as always, to her feelings.

His wife betrays herself more frequently with her voice than with her former glasses. He'd learned way back in High School that the former Miss Siobhan O'Mallory doesn't have to be read, only listened to.

x

"How long do you figure it'll take for the program to grow?"

"I should live that long. Saint Jude of Hopeless Causes preserve us, Anthony is easy by comparison. James and Michelle are easy by comparison. Dealing with Navy _and_ Marine _and_ Civilian bureaucracy, _that's_ hard."

"How are Jimmy and Michelle?" He'd intended to break her out of her mounting distress, but actually sees her spirits slump before the words are entirely out of his mouth. "Michelle seems tenser today than she was last week."

"I saw them yesterday and you _know_ I can't tell you anything more, but my heart goes out to them. I literally do not know what to do. They're both so committed to making their marriage work, but they started their marriage on a level ground, smooth going, and now the hill just seems to get steeper and steeper."

He's noticed her brogue getting steeper as well in the past moments. "What can I do?"

"You, a chuisle - absolutely _nothing_ and I mean it. There is _nothing_ I can conceive of that you can do that won't damage things worse for them. James' self-worth, his value as a husband, is tied in his mind with how he can protect his wife from deadly danger - and the only way that could happen is if she goes back to her desk job in Legal.

"When you two got trapped in that sauna – and thank _God _you didn't die! – you became James' focus for so many jealousies he can't even sort them all out. That you could've saved her means you stood where he should have. You having failed means he failed worse. The way you two were found – and mind you I am _not _jealous at all that you were almost naked and laying atop her – means you invaded his place as her husband.

"And all this is _on top of _the basic problem that's been driving a wedge between them for months, the fact that to save Michelle _and_ Megan Wood's lives, James had to murder George Franklin. To his view he didn't stop Franklin, he _murdered _him."

x

"Well at least Michelle tells me he's back to seeing Dr. Gyves."

Siobhan shakes her head, frustration ripping its way out. "No, no, no, a grá, you don't _understand_. Jennifer doesn't _understand_." Her brogue is growing so thick he can barely understand. "James is seeing Milton Gyves because he _must_, because Michelle and Jennifer and the others are _making_ him do it. But as much as I like Milton and respect him almost as much as I do Ducky, lying on a couch and talking about his feelings is not what James needs. He needs to talk to _Michelle_."

"Isn't he?"

"_No_. He is so afraid of losing her, so frustrated that he can't protect her, so tortured that he had to murder to save her and a perfect stranger, so jealous of _you_ because you were there when he wasn't - couldn't be - that I'm scared he's _going_ to lose her by clinging as tightly as he is."

Tim can see the situation devolving, especially when a bitter snipe had reduced the woman to tears. "Do you think she'd leave him?"

"She doesn't want to any more than he does, but if they don't start communicating it's going to happen and I'm" she holds up her hand, gloved thumb and forefinger pressed tightly "_this_ close to going to Jennifer and having her put both of them on a month-long Administrative Leave until they can work things out without cases and autopsies getting in the way."

x

Siobhan, possibly forgetting she's even in this Green Lantern costume, grows as red faced as her fictional counterpart, every bit the personification of the alien emerald gladiator fighting the system and all else for the people in her care. She normally doesn't vent her frustrations to him but now she's building up a good head of steam.

"What can we do?"

"I wish to God I _knew_. I truly do. But Seminary psychology courses don't make me a Psychiatrist, neither do all the counseling sessions I've ever run. You're Michelle's partner, Ducky's James' partner – thank God they've graduated in their relationship to partners rather than teacher and student though Ducky still does – but I'm their _Chaplain_, not even their parish priest - they don't even have a parish since they can't settle on what religion they'll follow - trying to get them to talk to one another and no matter how hard they try they simply can't connect."

x

"Tell me something," she says, switching gears so sharply he can virtually hear them grind. "I never asked you because I wanted to get only their sides, but did James _really_ beat up an FBI Agent?"

That afternoon in the garage will stick with him as one of the most shocking sights he'd seen in-house. "Well, not exactly beat up, but he did get all the punches in."

She puts her white gloved hand to her face, shaking her head. "Dear God, I'd hoped they'd exaggerated."

"Why?"

"One of the things James has prided himself on is a life-long pacifism."

"He wasn't very pacific that day."

"Because Agent Sachs said things about Michelle and threw James' murdering George Franklin in his face?"

"Yep."

"Oh dear God." She looks up out of her glove. "I've got to get them out of NCIS."

"You can do that?" Michelle off the team? Palmer out of Autopsy? The team go back to four? He and Michelle have gradually become partners in Field work, as have Zee and Tony. To lose that... Ducky working alone? Well, not alone, NCIS could hire Samantha Sky as a backup as they did last time.

But then he stops himself – this isn't about how NCIS will get along without an Agent and an ME, this is about Jimmy and Michelle.

"Believe me, a chuisle, I can."

She has the Director's ear, he knows, so she does have the influence if not the 'authority'. He knows if Shav makes a strong enough case then Shepherd will support it. He's never known his wife to make such a declaration unless she was absolutely confident she could accomplish it, and in the end of the day she doesn't give a damn about bureaucracy when it interferes with people's lives. "Is it really necessary?"

"I hope not. They're the ones who'll tell me, by their progress and their actions, if it's necessary. I'll keep working with them; I have a session with them tomorrow evening. But if it ever comes to a final choice, it'll be between out of NCIS or out of their marriage."

xxx

Tony, Ziva, Tim, Michelle and Jimmy meet as usual for breakfast in the fifth floor Café this early Friday morning, but though they're at the same table it can't be said that they're together. In fact, it's only Tony and Ziva that speak and even Tony's subdued, not meeting McGee's eyes. A usual pleasant morning gathering is now a burden to be gotten through with as little friction as possible.

When the agents descend to the third floor Operations Center it's something of a relief, but relief turns to surprise when the elevator doors open and Gibbs steps aboard, pushes Ziva and Michelle back into the men behind them.

"About time you four got here," he says as the doors close.

"Good morning to you too, boss," DiNozzo tries to keep the wince from his voice, Michelle's spiked heel had come down on his toe. It's the last time he'll let the women off first.

"Kebron and Hall have Mark Johnston waiting in Interrogation."

None of the agents are surprised Gibbs ordered Major Moses Hedberg's Aide brought in, but he could've waited for them. Special Agents Kebron and Hall probably rousted Johnston out of bed.

xx

"Why am I here?" the uniformed First Lieutenant demands of Gibbs when the agent enters the interrogation chamber and sits down, places a closed folder on the table.

Gibbs slides an 8 by 10 color portrait out of the folder. The picture is already aligned so the woman, photographed before a flag and a mahogany background is upright to the officer. The image depicts a blonde Major in full dress uniform, an impressive number of medal bars gleaming like a rainbow upon her chest. "Know her?"

"Of _course _I know her. That's our XO, Major Eastergaard."

"That's the before shot." He slides out another picture. "This is after."

Jimmy Palmer took this picture, the image is bare shoulders and upward and only the shoulder length blonde hair hints that it's Eastergaard. She'd smashed full body face forward into cement at nearly 190 feet per second with a force of over 85,000 foot-pounds and her flattened face is smashed.

Johnston rears back, keeps his seat but evidently wants to run. The woman's face is more terrible for the lack of blood and Gibbs places a full body shot beside the close-up.

Her body had ruptured, burst outward on the cement with the tremendous force of her impact. The sides of her body burst open, the rib cage is shattered and collapsed, little beside the general shape is human.

"She fell 558 feet, 43 stories in under 6 seconds."

"Oh my God."

"Why?" Gibbs asks. Johnston can't look up, his eyes locked on the images.

"Why what?" he asks, his voice hushed with horror.

"Why'd she jump?"

"I - I don't..."

"Something about Saddam Hussein and weapons. Ring a bell?"

"My God. _No_."

Johnston's so horrified he doesn't even try to hide his guilt and Gibbs pounces, no thought of mercy. "You told Beltway Burns that Eastergaard supplied weapons to Hussein so she wouldn't be advanced to XO over Hedberg, and you did it _again _when the CO's job opened up."

"_NO_!"

x

The next picture is well into the autopsy, shattered ribs mingled with ruptured organs in her wide spread torso; Gibbs slams this one down, mimics the force of the woman's impact.

"I mean 'yes', I told him about the arms, years ago, but the story didn't do any good."

"NCIS and the Corps each investigated, declared the story unfounded."

"Yes, it was a stupid thing to do, I got away with it quietly, by the skin of my teeth, but I did _not _raise it again. I learned my lesson the first time. It was stupid, but when Burns announced it yesterday it did not come from me, I _swear_."

"Who'd it come from?"

"I don't know. I honestly don't know. Maybe Burns recognized the name, dug up the old thing but I haven't spoken to him, I swear it."

Gibbs already knows he's lying, the man can't hide it. He went to Burns again and restarted the story and Gibbs doesn't care.

Fundamentally it doesn't matter. Gibbs believes the NCIS and Corps reports more than he believes either man, even though he's read Johnston's lies in his eyes.

But they now have a woman who supposedly jumped to avoid the shame of something, and Gibbs is certain he's wasting his time following this Saddam nonsense. For whatever reason Jubilee Eastergaard left that note, it won't be found in an archaic, twice disproven rumor.

"Here," he says, gathering the photos into the folder and replacing them upon the table with blank pages, "you can write out your confession and your resignation too. If you hurry, they might get to the Pentagon before our report does."

xx

"The Hussein case is dead," Gibbs declares when he joins his team in the orange cinderblock corridor. He'd had all four observe so he could garner four viewpoints of the confrontation, but there's no need. This waste of time is over. "McGee, what did you find in her computer?"

"If she was depressed, suicidal, afraid of exposure or doing anything she'd feel guilty about, I can't find it."

"Dig deeper." They've had the computer for less than 24 hours, barely enough time to skim the surface of the woman's life. For that same reason he won't call Ducky yet; he hadn't even gotten into the journals and other papers when he'd pulled into his driveway. If Ducky's had an inspiration, he'll call.

Gibbs will give him an hour.

xxx

"Boss," DiNozzo calls across the bullpen an hour later, hangs up the phone's receiver, "Colonel Varley is on one. He wants your final report."

Tony resists the impulse to cringe, but Gibbs doesn't fry him with a glare. Instead, Gibbs just picks up the phone with only slightly more than his usual brevity.

/It's been a full day, Agent Gibbs./ Varley's ramrod posture and compulsive organization sound so clearly in his words. /I'm waiting for your report./

Gibbs only does a fast count to twenty, it ends with not a break in the conversation. "Investigation's still going, Colonel."

/How much longer to wrap this up?/

"Could've gone faster if we'd known about allegations regarding arms diverted to Saddam Hussein."

/Empty rumor; nothing to it./

"The Corps investigated."

/As did you people. Nothing to it./

"Why did Eastergaard write 'I can't endure this anymore. I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way'?"

Ten. Fifteen. /Your report on my desk by the end of the day./

The line clicks dead. Dead as Eastergaard.

x

Rather than annoyance at the Colonel's highhanded manner, Gibbs is intrigued by this development. Varley, perhaps believing and perhaps not that he could browbeat a civilian who salutes and sirs no one, was taken aback by the suicide note.

Does Varley believe the woman he'd worked closely with for so many years could've taken her own life? Does Varley believe she could have a motive to do so? He wishes he could've seen the man's face.

There is, however, something he needs to check before he can see that face.

xxx

Fred Higgins, Sol Mitchner, Max Crawford and Susan Bourne stand before the crater and debris field that marks the home of Special Agent Afloat Cris Drakis. They've spent the night searching, with numerous Investigators, Police, CSIs and other Agents for the body of their slain fellow, locating, identifying and gathering pieces.

Now, before turning attention from that slow and grim task, they pause for a time before what's become, in their minds, a memorial site.

No one speaks. Each stands to his or her own thoughts, yet they seem to break from the past at the same time and turn to the future. "Sol, Max, you have the Eisenhower."

Drakis had been eight months aboard the Carrier docked in Norfolk, and he died within hours of the ship's docking. If this tragedy wasn't the accident it appears to be, and in Higgins' view it can't be, then the best clues are there. "Bourne, you go back to Headquarters, take a magnifying glass to every report he filed since he set foot aboard.

xxx

"What've you got, Abs?" Gibbs asks even before the sliding glass door rings him into the woman's lab. She turns, distress making her eyes bulge unnervingly.

"Gibbs, you shouldn't be here. I didn't summon you."

"I'm not one of Pavlov's dogs."

"I know that. I mean I didn't put out any 'Gibbs, I found something' vibes."

"Yes, you did."

She blinks astonishment aside. "I did?"

"Why do you think I'm here?"

"I mean I know that's why you're here, I mean I know I send out the vibes, I've been working on doing it consciously rather than sub-consciously all the time but I can't quite isolate the Theta-wave emissions that'll-"

"Abs." Ne has to stop her or a distraction will become a compulsion; she'll go off for an hour on this new tangent, sub-conscious vs. conscious and he needs her focused: "What did you find?"

"Only the negatives I gave you before. She wasn't drunk or high, her estrogen levels were where you'd expect someone who'd just had sex, but other than the normal all I found was a 600 percent jump in adrenaline."

"She fell 43 stories."

"That'd do it, but..."

He likes her buts, they usually foreshadow some interesting if not vital revelation. "What?"

"Well, when Ducky and Jimmy take blood samples, they note where the sample was taken. Eastergaard fell for five point eight eight-" she catches his look, "for six seconds, so you'd expect a massive dose of adrenaline near and 'upstream' of the kidneys - remember the adrenal glands sit right on top of them and dump a massive burst into the bloodstream. Your 'fight or flight' response is triggered in seconds, even less than six. Not many people know that the adrenal glands actually produce some thirty hormones, but not in such copious amounts like they do adrenaline, hence the name. Did you know that?"

"I did not know that."

"Of course not, not many people do."

"Abby."

"What?"

"What about _her _adrenaline?" Much as he loves talking to her, this could turn into a dissertation if he doesn't rein it in.

"I found almost her entire bloodstream flooded, like she'd been under stress for a lot longer than when she went over the rail."

"She was standing there, looking down, working up the nerve." He's not sure why he feels he should play 'devil's advocate', or even why he feels he has a chance. She usually gives him the same affronted scientist, 'don't you get it?' look she's giving him now.

"Gibbs, I know whereof I speak."

"Whereof you speak?" It's so hard to keep his lips from being pulled.

"Please, if I were a Superheroine my power would be Chemistry. I'd be Formula Girl."

"You are."

x

This halts her, makes her look up at him with renewed feeling. "Gibbs, that is so _sweet_."

"Focus, Formula Girl."

"Focusing. You know, I could design a really neat neon-green costume, and really, really short, short enough to get McGee's attention as he's into these comic book conventions like on Memorial Day weekend, with a big yellow F across my chest; show you the true wonders of Spandex."

"Focus harder." He's never had to break her from her digressions this many times. "Drakis?"

"Every time I stop for a breath I see him," she says to her monitor, her tone instantly falling from manic to morose.

"You knew him?"

"I know every NCIS Agent, even those you've never heard of."

If it were anybody else but Abby, he'd suspect her of hyperbole, but this is Abby. "You want me to get Reverend McGee down here? Or Grant?"

This pulls her attention off the monitor. "Who's Grant?"

She does have her priorities. "Focus."

"Focusing. When the adrenal glands dump you-know-what, they also exert negative feedback at the presynaptic alphaa-2 adrenergic receptor, which turns off the process, otherwise we'd stay at 'fight-or-flight' until we thought we'd drunk a gallon of 'Caf-Pow!'."

"Well, maybe you."

"Don't be snide, Gibbs."

"Never." He hadn't understood a word of that biological reference, so he's glad she added a translation.

"The point -" she eyes him suspiciously, then gives it up, "is that I found an incredible amount of adrenalin suffusing her whole body. Production can be fifty times normal, hers was even over that. She was under stress for a _long _time, and then that massive burst at the end."

xxx

Less than five seconds after he sits down behind his desk, concentrating on ridding his mind of the neon green and yellow image of Formula Girl, a woman's voice draws Gibbs attention to the bullpen entrance. "Agent Gibbs?"

As the escorting agent from the second floor Fingerprint Analysis, obviously an escort-of-convenience, withdraws, his glance at DiNozzo pulls the report that "She just got here."

He'll work on the protocols and benefits of report timing later. Right now he's more concerned with what information this Marine brings that she's come to the Navy Yard in person.

Though clothed in a crisp blue uniform under a light uniform jacket suitable for a balmy early May, Second Lieutenant Kimberly Almonk's eyes shout lack of sleep and an overabundance of misery. "I hoped you could tell me something."

"What is it, Lieutenant?"

She comes to his desk on her own wave of adrenaline. "I know I don't have the right to ask, and that you'll probably refuse to tell me, your famous Rule 45, but I need to know: Who killed Jubilee?"

He supposes this confrontation was inevitable. Last evening the gag order fell apart because of Beltway Burns' unrestrained rants and now everyone seems to know that the XO of MAGTF's CE, Major Jubilee Eastergaard, is the one who so spectacularly ended her life early yesterday morning.

That al Qaeda and the Taliban also know is certain. In fact, if not for the evidence Eastergaard herself left behind, he'd have the entire Alpha Shift investigating them for Eastergaard's murder.

Gibbs shakes his head. He'd hit her with one sledgehammer revelation yesterday, time for another. "No one killed her. She committed suicide."

'_LIAR_!"

x

Almonk's shout explodes through the Division, turning heads in every bullpen. Gibbs, half driven back into his chair by her fury, isn't angry; he's gratified by her passion. She's obviously more stressed by her friend and superior's death than she'd been showing and truly believes the XO didn't take her own life. Now he'll see if she has anything other than friendship to back up that certainty.

x

In the moment of dead silence which follows the echo of her fury, Almonk forces herself back under control. "I'm sorry, sir, but there's no way in hell Jubilee – Major Eastergaard – killed herself. She would _not_."

Looking up at the woman, he can easily read that she believes evry word. "Why not?"

"Aside from being Roman Catholic - they believe it's a mortal sin - she had _everything _to live for. She's been looking forward to this promotion, had detailed plans for what she was going to do for MAGTF; very precise plans."

"She left a note."

"Bullshit. What note?"

"On her laptop. It was on her screen when we got to her apartment. You probably heard about it; she jumped off her 43rd floor balcony."

Every drop of blood seems to fall out of Almonk's face, and for a moment Gibbs is ready should he have to jump up to catch her.

x

Almonk seems to come alive with greater strength instead. "That was…. Sir, could I see this note?"

Gibbs nods to DiNozzo.

"It was on her laptop, she hadn't even saved it," McGee says as DiNozzo pulls out a paper from the file on his desk and crosses the bullpen, hands it to Almonk. "The laptop was running on battery; we'd've lost the note if I'd been any later getting to it."

"'I can't endure this anymore'," Almonk reads. "'I'll be so humiliated when people discover what I've done. This is the only way.'" She shakes her head, looks back to McGee. "This must've lit up like a Christmas tree."

"What do you mean?" McGee asks.

"All reds and greens when you saved it." She frowns at his blank expression. "Spelling and grammar, all these words before you fixed it."

"Nobody fixed anything," Gibbs tells her, pulling her attention back to him.

"'Course you did." She shakes the paper before him. "_This_ would've lit up the screen the instant you saved it." She looks around at the five faces. "It _did_, didn't it?"

"No," Gibbs assures her, actually able to feel the pieces of this case assemble themselves in his gut. Almonk holds the paper out to him, her face reddening.

"_Then there's no way in HELL Jubilee wrote this_."


	10. Scrmabeld Gegs

Chapter Ten  
>Scrmabeld Gegs<p>

So many pieces, so complex a jigsaw puzzle, and now with Lieutenant Kimberly Almonk's impassioned declaration the pieces fit. "Tell us."

Almonk puts her hands on Gibbs' desk, the better to emphasize her point, but then she withdraws, straightens, forces herself to less passion. "Jubilee is - was - dyslexic. It didn't interfere with her doing her job but she couldn't write or spell a thing. The letters were never in the right spots, and I used to suspect were never in the same places twice."

"How did you two cover for that all this time?" Gibbs asks.

"She hated screens full of red and green underlines, so she and I set her MS Word so it didn't do a spell or grammar check until you hit 'save'. Then she'd send me the document and I'd fix it. In all the years we've worked together I've never gotten one thing from her that wasn't an adventure."

Gibbs is gratified that her answer confirms his theory.

x

"That's why the passwords on her files weren't words, they were finger patterns," McGee concludes, stepping closer.

She turns to him. "Passwords were impossible for her; she'd never be able to open anything without trial and error. And 'endure', 'anymore', 'humiliated', 'discover', and this complex phrasing, these would've turned the screen into something out of 'the Nightmare Before Christmas'."

"Also explains why you worked so closely with her, why she wanted you as her Aide," DiNozzo concludes.

"No one knows she's - _was _- dyslexic, no one ever had to. She never sent out anything that didn't go through me and I never told a soul."

"I'd said," Gibbs reminds DiNozzo, "that an Aide knows even more than her CO." He also realizes Ducky had given him a vital clue last evening while they were discussing her Journals. If he hadn't kept the team - and himself - working so late to make progress, he might have gotten it.

He shoves a button on the phone and, fortunately for his morning patience, he doesn't have long to wait.

"Abby, you got the fingerprints on that laptop yet?"

/No, I'm still running them. So far no hits./

"Top priority."

/_Gibbs_, the Director says the forensics on Chris Drakis' place have top priority./

He knows she barely has any by this point, and she created the concept of multi-tasking. "Eastergaard's killer wrote the suicide note."

/Like you said, top priority./

x

He breaks the connection with another stab. "David, Palmer, get down to Evidence Holding, go over that bed stuff and everything else with tweezers and magnifying glasses, find out who was in that apartment. McGee–"

"Downloading the files on everyone who works at MAGTF. I'll pull their prints and have Abby shove those comparisons to the top of the list."

"DiNozzo–"

"Pulling the files on everyone connected with MAGTF - anywhere. I'll get an ID on _everyone _on that lobby video if you have to crawl into the computer myself."

"Better go on that diet first." He turns to Almonk. "You and I are going to go over the records of everyone in your Command. Rumor had it she killed herself over another rumor that she supplied arms to Saddam Hussein in his attacks on the Kurds."

"What, _that _shit again?"

"Tell us about it."

Almonk sees all activity has stopped; everyone's staring at her - again. "When Jubilee was up for promotion to XO - she was already Major - it came up that several years before that she was directing arms to So Damn Insane. It wasn't _true_."

"Who broke the report?" He already knows but

"If anyone found out, they never told _me_, or Jubilee."

xxx

Abby picks up a pen from her inner office desk and is about to return to the outer when a 'ping' from her monitor's speaker pulls her attention back. There a blue dialogue box on the screen. She doesn't have time for this - until she reads the box. 'VideoChat with Dawn Caldwell. Yes. No.'

"What'da'ya think, you stupid machine," she mutters, snatches the mouse and runs the curser to her answer. "Sorry, hon," she says, patting the monitor's top with her left hand an instant before her friend's face appears. "_Sunshine_!"

"Hi, mom!"

Abby adopts an old-lady gravel. "Don't you 'mom' me, you young whipper-snapper."

"Haven't snapped a whip in my life," Dawn insists with a bright grin. In the background Bach's Double Violin Concerto in D minor 2nd movement plays, so Abby uses her remote to turn off 'Brain Matter'. "_Oh_, not true, I have."

Abby sees a story hidden in the admission in the way Dawn curls a long blonde lock about her right index finger. "And?"

"It took two weeks for Bobby-Ray to finally forgave me, but that's another story. Are you ready?"

'She looks anxious enough to climb through the screen,' Abby thinks. "I'm ready. Flight's booked - _First Class_, I've got to indulge sometime, so why not for my overdue vacation? Bags are packed. I'm ready for two weeks of Mardi Gras."

Dawn's fingers halt their hair twirling. "Mardi Gras was months ago, you either missed it or else you're really early."

"It's _always _Mardi Gras when Abby Sciuto returns to Jefferson Parish."

"Amen."

x

"'sides," Abby says, "I couldn't make it then on account of the wedding."

"Wed- wha- wait! You got _married_?"

"Not me," Abby assures her old friend who this time almost did jump through the screen, "friend of mine. Remember Tim McGee?"

"The guy you were running a boiling fever over? Only _yeah_. So he did go and marry his partner after all?"

Dawn had tried to help her over terrible bouts of jealousy when McGee had left her and turned to Ziva. "Nope, he married a priest." She hides her grin when all expression falls off Dawn's face, all tone vanishes from her voice.

"I didn't know he was gay," she says through near-motionless lips. Abby's laughter only disconcerts Dawn more. "Bi?" only makes her laugh harder.

"No, the priest's a woman," Abby says when she can get enough breath, half surprised her friend hasn't stepped far outside the Roman Church. "We have them up here."

"So, neither gay nor bi. _Good_. You almost _ruined _a whole year's worth of wet dreams." She runs her left hand fingers through her hair, pulls at the ends.

"Pipe down, YoungStar, he's too old for you."

"Not if _you _could date him, Vamperstein." Though Abby had babysat her two decades ago, she was 12 and Dawn was 6, so twenty years later only six now very short and insignificant years separate the scientist and the kindergarten teacher.

"Seriously, Sunshine, I'll send you some vids of the wedding." Abby ignores a pang of guilt that she hadn't done so already. If she has to catch up from this far back, the summer, she's grown negligent indeed. "But why the call?"

"No, I'm just double-checking," Dawn continues to run her fingers through the straight blonde locks that frame her face and brush the tabletop. "Remember, you're staying with us, room right next to mine's all fixed up. No excuses."

"I'm sleeping with Kevin?" Abby lights her eyes.

"You wish. Kev's in the Air Force, Staff Sergeant."

"No _way_. Kevin Caldwell couldn't follow an order if it was to collect his salary."

"Times they do change. Love you."

"Love you too, Sunshine."

"June 3rd."

"Be there,"

"_or be a squircle_," they finish in unison and Dawn cuts the image.

Abby stares at the black screen, her shadowed face half-reflected in it, and wonders how, in less than a year, her oldest and dearest friend could grow to be such a liar.

xxx

Hours later, hours spent in frustration over too many possibilities and no conclusions, the sun is setting for Gibbs and his team on a wasted day. Traces on the staff at the Pentagon yielded no joy, but an hour after dismissing Second Lieutenant Kimberly Almonk back to her Pentagon duties, an unexpected blast of joy bursts into the bullpen.

"Girls and guys," Abby says as she starts a very fast circuit and DiNozzo's desk and hands each of them two cards, one white paper 5 x 7, the other slightly bigger. "These just came Special Delivery, I wanted you to get them right away. Oh, and Dawn Caldwell videoed me, we're all set for June."

Gibbs doesn't care what answer to this case could come by Special Delivery, or about the call from Abby's friend who he recalls too well; he just reads the cards quickly.

"What is this?" he demands, outraged as Abby reaches Ziva's desk. The larger card is an Invitation from George Washington University's College of Medicine to attend its Commencement Exercises.

"Jimmy and Sammy's Graduations from Medical School. On-line scuttlebutt says it'll be one big shin-ding."

"Shing-ding?" Ziva asks, looking at a card in each hand.

"Whoa," Tony protests. "The Gremlin's - _sorry_, Michelle," he says in a tone that conveys how not-sorry he is, "already a Doctor."

"Only on paper," Abby counters before Michelle can, as though a Medical School Diploma is somehow meaningless.

"He graduated a couple of weeks ago," Michelle reminds her SFA, feeling he shouldn't need a reminder but she'll show a superficial courtesy if only because Gibbs is present, "but he had so many credits from his years here that he was in an accelerated program. The _Commencement _is now." She holds out her card for Abby to retrieve.

"You're not going?" DiNozzo can't help but ask.

She gives him a smug yet withering look that pulls a smile to Abby's lips. "I _have _my Invite."

x

"It's 'Plus One' everybody," Abby points out, "so you bring a date. All but you, McGee; you bring a date and Siobhan will give you Last Rites."

"Got it covered, Abby," he extends the cards to her, "but sorry, I won't be going."

"Awwww, Tim, Sammy would miss you."

"Sorry, same day as my sister's."

"Oh, that's right. How is Sarah?"

"She's goo–"

"Abby, if you're done with the Pompous Circumstances," Gibbs' tone leaves no doubt that she is, "what have you got on the laptop's fingerprints?"

"Nothing," she admits, no longer able to stall reporting the failure. "Metro and I both struck out; nothing in AIFIS or any of their local files that haven't been encoded. If anyone's been to Eastergaard's apartment they didn't touch anything and I've raised nothing on the laptop other than Eastergaard's, Almonk's and X's."

"X's...? Shutting up, Boss," DiNozzo says after catching the full force of Gibbs' glare.

"Not in time."

That X is a potential murderer brings no help; if he's not in AIFIS' system, then he's never been arrested, served in the Military, applied for Government Financial Aid like Food Stamps or other benefits, gotten any job that requires fingerprinting or in any other way made it into the system.

Unfortunately, in this country, that still leaves millions of people unaccounted for.

x

McGee and Palmer have pretty much nailed down the fact that, even ignoring the dead Saddam accusation, if there's anything behind Eastergaard's cryptic suicide note it doesn't involve money. Whatever the woman's supposedly done to spark this degree of implied guilt, she's not getting paid for it.

"Abby, what about DNA?"

"I found hair and dried bodily fluids but I'm still waiting on CODIS to give me a hit on DNA, but if X isn't in AIFIS how likely is he to be in CODIS?"

"That's what I need you to tell me, Abs."

"Not damned likely."

Gibbs had started to look down to his desktop, that phrase yanks his gaze back up. A quick look, everyone else is staring at the woman with expressions he thinks to be little different from his own.

"Er, maybe I should get back to my lab."

He glances at the clock across the room. "Maybe you should get back to your apartment."

"Maybe you're right."

x

When she's gone, Gibbs considers the rest of his team behind poker eyes. Against the speed of yesterday's progress, this day is maddening. It's already after 1700 and Gibbs doesn't want to send anyone home without a major break in the case. Then his desk phone sounds and he snatches it up halfway through the first ring.

/Gibbs, John from Dispatch. I've got a caller on the line about your Marine Major, but you'll probably need an Interpreter./

Gibbs flashes through his choices: he has Russian, Polish, Greek and Arabic; DiNozzo has Italian and Russian; McGee's got French and Spanish and his bride's breaking him into Gaelic - big help there; Michelle's got Chinese, Korean and Japanese and Ziva has almost everything else. "What language?"

/Weepy./ The line gives a triple click and a woman is on the other end.

/Hello? Is anyone there?/

"Special Agent Gibbs." She doesn't sound like she's crying now but her voice is stuffed with that heavy, shattered quality that says she had been recently. He hopes she doesn't do it again.

/I need to talk to someone,/ she says in a near whine. /About that woman who was murdered and thrown off her balcony. Will someone help me?/

"I will," he says, waving sharply for the attention of the surrounding agents. He won't put this on speaker, might spook the already fragile woman, but if he gets something he intends to be on the road quickly.

Gibbs flashes McGee the 'Trace this' signal and to Tony to get the MCRT truck ready. McGee works quickly to track the call should the connection be broken without the courtesy of an address.

/I saw on the news about it,/ the woman says. /They say she killed herself. They're _wrong_. _He killed her_!/

"Who did?"

/I don't _know_!/ She's losing it rapidly.

"We'll help you. What's your name?"

/Susan./ Big help. /Susan Fordham, I live right across the street./ Bigger help. /Apartment 4502./

"We'll be there soon. Five Agents."

The line goes dead.


	11. Refrain Thy Voice From Weeping

Chapter Eleven  
>Refrain Thy Voice From Weeping<p>

Gibbs' Charger, with David riding shotgun and Palmer in the rear, slides into a space only a car length from the front entrance of the building in Near Northeast. But DiNozzo must pilot himself and McGee another eight lengths forward to find space for the white and black MCRT truck.

Across the dimming street and slightly to their right there's nothing to show the drama that'd taken place at the Valhalla's base yesterday morning.

When the black capped and jacketed quintet enter the building they'd ignored yesterday, other than the men's seeing it from Eastergaard's patio window, they carry only cameras, notepads and DiNozzo's sketchbook. All the forensic evidence had been gathered from across the street; Gibbs' having DiNozzo and McGee bring the MCRT truck is only an application of Rule 29, 'Anticipate every possibility.'

They identify themselves to the Concierge, note the placement of Security cameras and the efficiency of the certification procedure and wish the Officers across the street were as diligent. In due time, properly ID'd and certified, Gibbs knocks on the door to 4502.

x

The woman who pulls it open is about 35, brunette, almost Ziva's height and her eyes are red and puffy with tears. Her eyes flicker to the three men. "Agent ... Gibbs?"

"I'm Gibbs," he says and introduces the other Agents who display their cards and shields.

"Come in," Susan Fordham says, dabbing her wet eyes with a thoroughly rumpled handkerchief.

She gets no further than halfway across her living room, McGee closing the door, before she turns and shatters. "It was so _awful_," she weeps. "How could he do that?"

Rule Number 46, which has served him better than the average, commands 'never touch a crying woman' but as they wait Fordham shows little sign of regaining control of herself. After half a minute Michelle, the only married woman on the team, steps forward and hugs Fordham.

She holds on and lets the taller woman cling to her and weep on her shoulder, but past her she says to Tim "Abby told me what your wife told her about James 2: 15 and 16.

"Er... Okay."

x

It's not quite as long as Gibbs feared, but when Fordham finally pulls back DiNozzo's waiting with a glass of water obtained from the kitchen.

Getting the woman seated is Gibbs' next priority, and he hopes she's gotten this deluge out of her system - at least long enough to get the story out. "What happened?"

"He threw her off the balcony, right over the _rail_. She screamed all the - all the way - down and I coul - I _couldn't_–"

"Where were you?" he asks more sharply than she evidently expected, for it shocks her back under control.

"I was on the – the... Would it be okay if I have a drink?" She ignores the full glass still in her hand, looks to a wheeled cart in the corner of the room. There are several bottles and glasses upon it, few bottles have more than half capacity.

"DiNozzo." The man chooses the least full bottle, presumably a favorite, but he doesn't put more than a finger's width into the glass. Forman's not overly pleased with the amount he hands her, but the unspoken message is clear.

"I was out on – my husband's – he's away and - do we - do we really ha - have to do this here?"

Though her words aren't clear, the appeal in her eyes is. "David, Palmer," Gibbs says, "take Mrs. Fordham into the next room."

x

When the women follow Fordham down a hallway Gibbs, DiNozzo and McGee check the room. It's similar in layout to Eastergaard's; the hallway, the placement of ten apartments per floor and the structure of the lobby are enough to make it evident the same architect designed both facing structures. The similarity extends to the rail-enclosed patio outside the sliding glass door.

The two towers are slightly offset, from Eastergaard's apartment this building blocked some of the right side view of the distant Capital Mall though not so much the more distant Navy Yard and Anacostia river. From this side the northward view, from two stories higher, is still partially obscured on their right but the rest extends all the way to Maryland.

Tony points out Eastergaard's apartment in the Valhalla to their right; Eastergaard's glass door's drapes are drawn but otherwise Fordham's view of the patio and apartment is excellent.

xx

"I couldn't say it in front of - those men," Fordham tells Ziva and Michelle from the middle left edge of her Queen size bed. Neither woman crowds her, Ziva is a few feet away straight on, close to the sliding door of the long closet, Michelle to her left past the foot of the bed, notepad and pen ready to take a shorthand record of the testimony. A microcassette recorder runs in the petite woman's skirt pocket while the microphone wire hangs unobtrusively at her hip.

"How long is your husband gone?" Ziva asks, holding Fordham's attention off Michelle and her records.

"He's in Canada for a week; Bill's with DeLowrey, Mannon and Pierce, he's looking at a lot of Canadian properties the Corporation's thinking of investing in."

"Does he travel a lot?"

"A lot," Fordham emphasizes. "Well, anyway, I got... well, I get lonely. Bill's gone a lot, for weeks at a time. You know how it is."

"I am not married," Ziva says, her tone masking her thoughts and her opinion.

Michelle, when Fordham looks to her, only shakes her head; let the woman draw her own conclusions. Still a newlywed over these months, she can't imagine _anyone _but Jimmy.

"Well, there's this ... we met at work, he's married too but he's ... well, that is–."

"But not to you," Ziva says peremptorily, impatient for the woman to get to the point before Gibbs calls for the bottom line.

"Well, you know how it is." Neither agent agrees. "We were... we were out on the patio, I was..." Her voice breaks.

Ziva says "Please do not cry again" so peremptorily it stops Fordham cold.

x

"Yeah, well," it takes her a moment to recover her poise. Ziva gives her her best 'You have used up all your leeway' look.

"We were on the patio, I was bent over, holding onto the rail. It was exciting, you know, almost doing it in public - 45 stories up. We could be caught - if there was anyone to see.

"Then, while Sam's behind me, I spot this couple across the street. They're lit by the apartment lights, he's dressed but she's in her underwear. I couldn't hear what they were saying but it was pretty intense."

"They were arguing?"

"No. It was like she was begging for something, holding onto his arm. He kept shaking his head, kept pulling out of her grip. Sam's getting faster, harder, I'm about to come and part of me is thinking they're gonna notice, it's making what Sam's doing more exciting to think they might spot us.

"Then he puts his arm to her chest, forces her to lean backward over the rail - and then he gets his other arm behind her leg and flips her up and over the rail!"

x

Fordham looks like she's about to break again but Ziva's firm expression stops her. "She screamed all the way down. I wanted to scream. Sam saw too and stopped but I couldn't scream.

"It all happened so fast. She screamed one long scream – but it had to be just a few seconds – and when she hit the sidewalk it was like - like she _exploded_. Like a water balloon filled with blood. She just - _splashed _- but we heard that horrible _thump_. It wasn't like you see on television - nothing like it. She hit and just _burst_. There was a splash of blood - and I couldn't move. I couldn't scream - I couldn't do _anything_."

"What did the man do?"

"That was just as horrible. He - _glanced _down at her, and then he just went back inside and closed the glass door."

"What did he do then?"

"I was looking down, a crowd was building and she just looked so horrible, just laying there broken, blood all around her. There was this one couple, by the streetlights. I could see she went to her, he started herding everyone else back. When we finally looked up again, he was sitting on the couch, typing on a computer. Then he just - just got up and stepped away from the couch. I never saw him again."

x

"Did anyone question you about what happened?" Ziva doubts it but has to ask.

"No – I don't know – I couldn't stay home, not with her body laying there. And Sam said not to say anything."

"Why is that?"

Ziva's suspicions are upheld. "He said we couldn't explain what we were doing on the patio, that I couldn't pull off a lie and my husband - his wife - they'd find out about..."

"But you could not keep the secret."

Fordham gulps, fights for control she's still in danger of losing. "Every time they talked about her - on the radio - on TV - wrote about her - it was always _suicide_. That she killed herself. Then they said who she was and everybody's talking that she did - must've done - something terrible to jump like that."

Fordham's intensity almost has her off the bed. "But she _didn't _jump. She didn't kill herself. It _wasn't _suicide but Bill and I were like the only ones in the world who knew the truth - and he won't..." She loses her fervor in misery, in guilt over her inaction. "He says if we talk, Bill and Charlotte will find out what we..." She can't meet Ziva's eyes for several seconds, but finally forces herself to do so.

"But every time they said 'suicide' it ripped my heart in half. Then when someone said NCIS was investigating and was about to close the case, I couldn't _stand _it anymore."

xxx

When Ziva makes her report after the five leave the apartment she doesn't feel charitable and Michelle doesn't want to add anything. The petite woman has the interview on her micro-undercover recorder and verbatim shorthand and only wants to throw up.

"I do not consider the boyfriend to be worth tracking at this point," Ziva contends. "He is more interested in preserving his secret than in Major Eastergaard's death and will only brick wall us."

Gibbs glares DiNozzo to silence. "You have his information."

"Of course." She'd be mad if he'd phrased it as a question.

"The neighbors should be home by now," McGee points out. Yesterday no one on Eastergaard's floor had been home and there'd been no opportunity last evening to canvass them. Now on this Friday evening they may have a chance, at least among those who don't start the weekend early.

"As long as there are no clubs involved," Gibbs declares. After 'Shangra-La' and 'Sodom & Gomorrah', he's had his fill of clubs.

xx

Getting past the Security Officer in the lobby is no challenge, the agents have become quite familiar to the building staff. The man on duty isn't the one they'd seen yesterday morning, he's due from 0000 to 0800, but if Gibbs feels that what he learns this evening warrants it he'll drive to the man's home.

For now, he wants whatever the neighbors on Eastergaard's floor know.


	12. I Don't Want To Get Involved

Chapter Twelve  
>I don't want to get involved.<p>

There are 9 other apartments on Jubilee Eastergaard's floor, presumably equally large, so Gibbs splits the team. They'll take 4301 to 5, those that finish first or strike out will hit 7 through 10.

The agents quickly and collectively find two facts, neither of which surprise them; everyone knows their neighbor in 6 is the one who fell from her balcony yesterday before dawn and nobody saw or heard anything either yesterday or at any time in the past.

DiNozzo feels particularly unlucky and unloved; 3 is empty or no one's answering and he can't charm the bachelorette - no ring - in 7 so it's on to 8. He suspects he'll finish the entire floor before the others finish their interviews.

The woman who answers his knock on door number 8 - or is it three for him? - makes him reconsider his luck. If only he were the free-wheeling Lothario of old, not committed to a relationship with Jeanne Benoit.

"Yes." The blonde's tone makes him wish he'd started out with a good personal proposal.

"Good evening." He displays his shield and IDs as he introduces himself. "I wonder if I might ask you some questions."

"You might."

"Concerning the woman who died here yesterday, Marine Major Jubilee Eastergaard."

"Oh, I didn't say you may, I just answered you when you asked if you might."

"Lemme guess, English teacher."

"That's right. But I'm really sorry," she smiles slightly to take the sting from her words, "I have dinner on the stove and nothing I can tell you."

"Perhaps it's possible you may have seen or heard something odd or out of the ordinary, that at the time didn't seem significant but now–"

"Excuse me, the truth is I have a lot of tests to grade for my seventh grade class before dinner and quite frankly I really don't want to get involved."

x

DiNozzo's heard this declaration ever since becoming a Police Officer, going through two states before being recruited by Gibbs ten decades ago, and he can actually feel his supply of understanding drop below the critical line. "A woman may have been murdered, Mz..."

"Jamie Pemberton. Look, I'm sorry about that and all, but I don't want to get involved."

"Okay. I can't make you, of course. But before I go, would you be willing to look at a picture, tell me what you might remember?"

Pemberton takes several seconds to think it over. "All right." Apparently she can't deny a simple and reasonable request.

Recently the team has taken to carrying two pictures of a subject, an official one obtained through either the Navy or the Corps and a sledgehammer between the eyes picture. DiNozzo decides to use the sledgehammer.

Jubilee Eastergaard is photographed from directly above the silver autopsy table. The Y incision starts at the upper portion of her chest from a point above and between her breasts, a folded back flap of flesh rests upon her chin. Her torso, all the way down to her crotch, is spread wide; shattered ribs and ruptured organs displayed in livid color. Above her shattered, mashed face an incision runs from behind each temple along her forehead. The top of her head is peeled back, the crown of her skull removed to display the convolutions of her brain.

x

"_Oh shit_!" the woman drops the picture as though burned. Unfortunately for her it lands upright at their feet. Hand covering her mouth, she can't break her eyes from the picture for over ten seconds but when she can look up at DiNozzo she's breathless and nauseated. "_You son of a bitch_."

"That's what your next door neighbor looks like on our table in the Navy Yard." He thinks, but doesn't say 'looks like you're involved now'.

Pemberton' turns away, hands clamped over her mouth and he takes the opportunity to step into the apartment.

"Someone your neighbor apparently knows reduced her to that yesterday morning. He threw her off her balcony, just as high as you are so you know the view, and she exploded on the cement."

"Oh God, I'm gonna be _sick_." She runs from the room and DiNozzo doesn't chase her, simply closes the door and listens to the distant retching.

'Maybe this time I channeled Gibbs too much?'

But he's not sorry. He's sorry for Eastergaard.

xx

It's five minutes after the retching quiets that Jamie Pemberton returns. "You're a bastard. Anyone ever tell you that?"

"No, but they tell the guy who trained me that all the time."

"If I tell you what I know, will you leave me alone?"

"Probably." He won't mention that Gibbs and the others are down the hall.

"She had a boyfriend, at least I figure he was a boyfriend, I saw him all the time going into and sometimes out of her apartment. Sometimes we'd even ride the same elevator in the evening."

DiNozzo dutifully takes all of this down in his notepad. "Can you describe him?"

"He was a man. Just like you." This, and her angry tone, make him look up. "Man, I don't know. Tall, taller than you. White. He never once glanced at me so why would I look at him? We'd ride the elevator once in a while, he'd be looking nervous at the start but calm down before he'd get to the top. He'd turn left, I'd turn right and that was it. Now will you get out of here so I can forget you?"

'Interesting, he looked nervous but she never looked at him.' "Just one last question."

"Just so long as you promise never to come back."

x

This is an odd situation for DiNozzo to find himself in. He's been sent away by women before, one can't rack up 500 or so notches without it happening some time, but usually if it does happen it's after the date, not instead of.

"When was the last time you two rode the elevator together?"

"Last week. I guess it ... I'm not sure what day, late in the week I think, around six. Now can you take _that_–" she stabs the air to the picture between them, "and just go?"

He crouches down rather than bend to retrieve the picture. "Thank you for your help," he says as he puts it away. She has, all unwillingly, helped. All McGee need do is go over the disk they have, or others from Security if the one they have doesn't go back far enough, and see who rode the elevator with her last week, compare who they find with yesterday's footage and they've got their man.

He turns to leave but "Wait." He turns back. "You don't seem a bad sort."

"Oh, I'm not."

"There is one thing I remember, struck me a bit odd. Normally if we ride together he doesn't look at me and I'm not interested in looking at him as I said. He stares at the numbers as they change.

Real unsociable guy, you know? But one day he got off early, he couldn't have mistaken the floor because he stares at the numbers as they change. But he got off early and turned right instead of up here and going left."

"What floor did he get off on?"

"Man, I don't know. I didn't care. You're lucky I noticed at all."

"Thank you." He actually does feel lucky.

xx

"I struck off," Ziva announces when the five regroup.

"Out," DiNozzo says, an almost automatic correction.

"Ditto," McGee says.

"Datto," Michelle chimes in, earning some glances. "Doesn't anyone get involved anymore?"

"Fortunately, _I _hit a home run," DiNozzo crows. "Well, I have to admit that Jamie Pemberton in 8 didn't _want _to get involved at first, but I turned on the old DiNozzo charm and I had her eating out of my hand and singing a lovely tune."

Gibbs doesn't care to unravel this tangled metaphor. "What did she say?"

"Eastergaard had a boyfriend who used to visit her, he and my informant sometimes rode the elevator together around sixish."

"Get a name?"

"Not even much of a description, taller than me, white, but we can get him off the Security disk. But there was some break in the pattern: she remembers one time the guy got off early and went right instead of here and left. She also said he stared at the floor numbers and was frequently nervous on the beginning but calmed down when he'd get up this high."

"That is unusual," Ziva contends.

"I'm the other way around," Michelle admits.

"In most things," Tony slips through, earns a wrinkled nose for a reply.

"What about the disk?" Gibbs asks McGee.

"It only covered a 24 hour period from midnight to midnight. We can get others from Security."

"I told you to do that last evening."

"I know, boss, I, er, got distracted." He expects a head slap and is even more disconcerted that Gibbs is too put out to give him one.

xxx

"I'm sorry," the officer at the lobby Security desk tells them, having absolutely no idea how sorry Gibbs could make him. "That's the only disk; it's been used for months, records for 24 hours and then overwrites the old footage. It's only replaced when the image starts to get grainy."

"The image is very grainy," McGee tells him, now knowing his headaches are caused by more than the wrong type of camera.

Gibbs looks to DiNozzo. If Thursday post-midnight's images are all they have...

DiNozzo shakes his head. "Pemberton says it was a few days ago, sometime end of last week."

x

Gibbs leads the agents out through the glass door onto the street, DiNozzo half a step behind.

"Bet you wish he was with NCIS," DiNozzo says of the Security officer as they head for the car, "so you could give him a head slap about changing the disks daily."

Gibbs' hand comes back and up fast, the rap sharp.

Michelle smiles. She doesn't have the rank to headslap Agent DiNozzo so she enjoys what he gets from Gibbs as much as she can. "Feel better?"

Gibbs considers the point for a moment. "Yes."

xxx

Their recent advance in information more limited than Gibbs would like, he gets off the headquarters elevator one level above the underground garage after giving McGee orders to tear the secrets out of Eastergaard's mirrored drive on his computer in the bullpen or tear the innards out of the one in Evidence lockup. The others have their priorities as well and Gibbs gets off at the Autopsy suite to see what Ducky's unearthed from the woman's journals and other papers.

"Find anything?" he asks before the sliding doors are fully open. Ducky and Jimmy are examining papers, Ducky at his desk and Jimmy at the third silver table.

The older man turns. "Define 'anything'."

"The solution to this case."

"Well, in that case I did not find anything. And you, Doctor Palmer?"

"A negative anything," he says, spreading his hands over the table full of papers, "which isn't exactly a 'nothing', more like an absence of any–"

"Doctor Palmer."

He turns to his mentor. "Yes?"

"A simple 'no' would suffice."

"Yes, no. That is no, not yes no, I mean I know a no but this is a yes no, yes." Ducky's head falls into his hand and Gibbs sympathizes; he has a Palmer of his own. "That is, I have a letter."

Ducky's head comes up. "A what?"

"A letter. The letter B." Both men come to join him and he shows them the datebook he's been reading. "Appointments are clear, she gives at least first or last names or places, but occasionally she only meets B."

Gibbs takes the book, pages to the current week. She met B the night she died.

"That's good work, Palmer," he says, handing the book back. "Find me some more letters," he says as he strides to the door.

When he's gone, Ducky turns to his protégé. "Well done, Doctor." He heads back to his desk.

"What are you...?" There's several pounds of papers on the silver table.

"To look for more B's, of course."

xx

In Operations, Gibbs calls out be ore he steps into the bullpen: "McGee, find me some B's."

"Bees? You mean like honey bees?"

"No. Search her hard thingy for the letter B."

"Boss?"

"Not one of them."

"You want me to do a search for one letter?"

"Eastergaard met with a B many times, including the night she died. But B is all she used in her datebook."

"Well, I can do a search for B comma, B period, space B space–"

"Don't talk, do. DiNozzo,"

"Right here, boss," he says, wishing he weren't. The window overlooking the Navy Yard out to the Capital Mall is already black.

"Check the Pentagon staff. Anyone there B's?"

"I'm sure there must be. MAGTF's a big operation."

"Ziva, you're with him." He hopes that B is the source of the recent bedsheet deposits and the sperm found in Eastergaard or he's devoting a lot of resources to a too-late-evening wild goose chase.

"Palmer, head down to Autopsy; Ducky and your husband have a couple hundred sheets and some notebooks and journals to wade through."

"Yes, sir."


	13. B Line

Chapter Thirteen  
>B Line<p>

Forty five wasted minutes later there are too many results and far too few. Tony and Ziva have found 57 staff at MAGTF's Pentagon offices with either first or last initials B while McGee hasn't found any stray letters on Eastergaard's hard drive.

"McGee."

"Boss?"

"When you mirror a hard drive, what do you copy?"

"Everything."

"Everything everything, or just what you can see?"

"Everything everything, even hidden... Boss, my brain must be shutting down."

"Always knew that, McMystery sector," DiNozzo cuts in. No one looks to him.

"No, you're right," he admits even as he types rapidly. "Everything on that computer was work-related, no personal files... and here ... we ... _are_, a hidden directory that's... password protected. No, inputting a password cracker based on Eastergaard's finger pattern. It'll check every possible combination from each potential starting point - I'm _in_."

Gibbs doesn't like the way the victory falls off McGee's face. "Boss, there's about 20 megs here."

"So?"

"So it'll take time to go through a hundred directories."

"'I thought computers were supposed to make things go faster'."

"This is faster."

"Look for the B's."

"Working on it, but there doesn't seem to be any, at least not stand-alones."

"Well, what about names?"

"Inputting the search parameter of common names beginning with B, and including as a side-search any Robert or William."

x

Gibbs notices both Tony and Ziva watch McGee expectantly. "I didn't tell you you could stop."

"But the computer's..." DiNozzo changes his mind about saying how much faster the system is. "Continuing to background the Pentagon B staff."

"You're looking for 'Brad', McGee announces.

Gibbs is across the bullpen in two seconds. "What've you got?"

"Four hundred fifty eight references to Brad."

"That's a lot of Brads," DiNozzo earns a glare from Gibbs, "and no Brads at the Pentagon."

"There are only four Bradleys noted in all of MAGTF's records," Ziva counters, "and all of them are presently deployed; one in Afghanistan, one in Pakistan, one in Germany ... and one in Kuwait."

"How long?"

"Most recent deployment... was Bradley Dermott to Germany eleven months ago."

"McGee, share that directory." Almost 460 references scattered throughout files are too much for any one person to track down in the time before he'll lose patience for a definite answer. "Any of those files a picture?" The average BOLO is ten times more useful if the LEOs can see who they're looking for.

McGee does another search but "No, no picture files."

A glance at the clock shows it's nearly eight; his people have been on this hunt today for over twelve hours. If they get no concrete results in a half hour, he'll turn them loose.

xx

Fortunately for his impatience which he doesn't have to bottle up for the night, McGee calls him with three minutes left on the clock. "Boss, I have something."

Gibbs makes the crossing even faster than the last time. There's a directory of file names on the screen. "What?"

"There's a Microsoft Word document here that's nearly nine megabytes."

"What is she writing, a book?"

"Please, my last novel didn't come close to nine million." He doesn't want to mention 'Cearbhall's Quest' here, there are too many bad memories associated with it in this office - and it hadn't been on computer either, that's just his highly accurate estimate. Good as it is, it's the novel that led Shav to successfully make him promise never again to include her as the inspiration for a character.

"_Well_?" Gibbs' expectant demand derails his thoughts.

"Well what?"

"_Open _it."

When he does, the document looks like any ordinary page, but McGee holds the 'Page Down' button and shortly an image flashes past. He must page back to position it on the screen. It's a full page color candid picture of a man one who is apparently unaware he's being photographed.

"Hello, Brad," Gibbs says with heavy irony. "DiNozzo, get this on a BOLO. David, send a copy to Colonel Varley's attention; has anyone seen this bastard? McGee, set this thing on automatic, then everyone go home." He returns to his desk, uses the intercom to give Autopsy the 'good' news, also generally giving the word to his team: "Saturday shift 0800."

xxx

Hollis Mann knows that for Leroy Jethro Gibbs there are better ways to spend an evening, or rather early night, alone than in his basement, hands guiding a sander along the curved hull of his new, unvarnished boat. She wants to know his favorite alone time things, so now as occasionally before, his hands guide hers.

He's behind her, their hands move the tool slowly - in fact with quite sensual slowness - up and down the curved wood.

The wide curve of the hull means she can't move her hips very far forward, but she _can _feel Jethro through her jeans.

"There are some states where this could be considered illegal." She does, however, feel no inclination to move, or to move him away.

It's rather like she remembers batting practice to have been, when she'd told him she didn't know how to hit and he'd given her some very up close and personal guidance.

"Which state?"

"Oh, state of inebriation." He leans his hips just a little bit closer and she wiggles her own, sure now that the wood before her isn't the only one involved in this. "The state of undress."

He's even closer, she turns around - not having much room to turn - and the sander clatters to the floor. Trapped between him and the boat she leans back, her body arches along the curved hull, his lips chase hers but most of her attention is on what she now feels pressed to the front of her jeans. The boat wood is definitely not on either of their minds.

His hands haven't released hers and she's very willingly let him hold hers up, head high, the backs of her hands pressed to the hull. She smiles into the kiss, not the easiest thing to do but she tells him she's willing for anything he has in mind. She moves her feet apart, about as widely as her hands, shifts her hips slightly forward, welcomes his added closeness.

When his lips come past her to nuzzle her throat she feels the charge from her hair to her toes and breathes into his ear "Jethro, you'd have made a wonderful pirate; your helpless captive, a lusty wench taken from the ship you sent to the bottom, trapped against the lifeboat..."

xxx

Gibbs turns the corner of the bullpen, gratified though unsurprised to see his team hard at work on this Saturday morning. He knows none of them want to be here any more than he does, but his focus is on the track of the mysterious 'Brad'. "What've you got, people?"

"No hits on the BOLO, boss," DiNozzo started his report even before Gibbs reached '-ple'.

"Such staff as are at the Pentagon have not replied," Ziva says. "I sent the picture and particulars last evening to Colonel Varley's official and personal emails as well as to Pentagon Security. All have been opened."

"Last evening Jimmy and I brought home Major Eastergaard's journals to try to read between the lines." Michelle refuses to flinch over his look at bringing home evidence, but there's no disapproval in his expression. "We didn't find much more than Ducky had."

He's not surprised. Michelle's had Profiler training here and at FLETC but she's a lawyer and Ducky's only begun teaching his protégé the intricacies of the Psychological Autopsy.

"McGee." When he doesn't get an answer he looks over; the man's staring at the monitor screen with an expression of someone trying to solve a particularly complex jigsaw puzzle. "McGEE."

x

Tim actually jumps in the chair before breaking away from the screen.

"Sorry, boss, I was reading some of her private files, but they're the ones Lieutenant Almonk never got to clean up so they're raw data - and pretty raw."

"Tell me about it," Michelle says in that tone that says so clearly she doesn't want to be told. She's still impressed she got through an evening of the woman's spelling.

"Dyslexic," Tony concludes.

"Very. Next time you take the journals home."

"I was busy," he says in that way that makes no one want to ask.

"No," McGee counters, "when I say raw I'm not just talking about spelling. These were her private thoughts and they're not a bit censored. Tony should be the one reading this."

"I don't read porn, McMasters, particularly if I'd have to sort out what it says."

"I feel like I should have a shampoo to wash out my mind."

"Wait'll your wife hears you're reading porn on the job."

"Trying to read it. This is more work than–" he catches Gibbs' eye just in time.

"You know, I've wondered about dyslexics," Michelle says, mostly to distract attention away from her partner so he may avoid his fate. "I mean do the words look right to _her_?"

"Ask Ducky about it," Gibbs directs. "Later."

"I did find one thing," McGee says. "Brad's last name is Thomas."

Gibbs considers McGee lucky that he's so far away. "And you couldn't tell us that _first_?"

"I had to find a couple of samples. The majority of them have it spelled similar to 'Thomas', but those are only the oldest files that mention him. She gradually stopped using the last name, I gather as their relationship started to develop."

"I wonder why she did not use that 'Dragon Writer' software," Ziva says. "Then she only need speak and the words would be spelled properly."

"Maybe 'cause then she couldn't read it," Michelle supposes.

No one wants to take either side in that debate, even if Gibbs would give them the time. "What did you _get _on this guy, McGee?"

x

"Apparently he'll either meet her somewhere in the city or sign in and go upstairs to her apartment where they'll … well … before they go out."

"Sign in? He was there the night she died."

"I can't understand it either, there was no Bradley or Brad Thomas - or Thomas - on the Visitor sheets, no matter what time the evening before he came."

"He was on the sheets all right."

"_DiNozzo_."

"I'm just saying, boss, that he was there."

"Could've picked a better way," he says, glancing at Ziva and Michelle, neither of whom seem as disturbed as he is. "Bradley Thomas."

"Scanning." He types the details into his computer. "I've always wanted to say that. Makes me feel like Data."

"You're too different from Data," Michelle insists.

"Really?"

"Data was sexy."

Tony decides the only reason to let her get away with that is the marital difficulties the woman is having, but it's a close call. "No Bradley Thomas listed in the DC or Tri-State area."

"Why am I not surprised?" Gibbs asks. "Come on. Let's see why the Condo staff isn't signing this guy in."


	14. Why?

Chapter Fourteen  
>Why?<p>

When the five agents enter the Condo's lobby Security Officer Bob Hillman looks up and his eyes telegraph his regret. "May I help you?"

"You can do a better job than you did yesterday," Gibbs tells him.

"I gave my statement to the police."

"But you didn't give a very good one to us. You left a lot out. You should have mentioned Eastergaard's boyfriend visiting the night she died, and told us why he didn't sign in."

Hillman looks like he's facing unemployment without benefits; actually Gibbs doesn't care about mentioning the slip to anyone so long as he gets the information now. "Boyfriend? I don't know any boyfriend. I don't know anybody's boyfriend."

Gibbs pulls out the printed image from Eastergaard's document.

"That's Mr. Bradley. He's not a 'boyfriend'."

"_Mister_ Bradley?"

"Thomas Bradley."

Gibbs turns to McGee.

"Boss, I swear, she had him down as 'Brad Thomas'."

"No," Hillman insists. "That's Thomas Bradley, he lives in…" he opens a white ring binder, runs his finger down the page. "2709."

Jamie Pemberton had given DiNozzo a direction – at least one other than 'go away and don't come back'. "That'd be a right turn off the elevator?"

"Yes."

"No wonder he stared at the number display and only relaxed when he was high up in the thing," DiNozzo recalls.

"Too much risk of running into _Missiz_ Bradley."

xx

When the black-clad agents assemble in front of 2709, none of them feel charitable. If they see a newly familiar face in this apartment they're prepared to be merciless, even if they do not see the supposed 'Brad'.

Through the door, they can hear the distinctive though faint sounds of Saturday morning cartoons and when the door opens thirty seconds after Gibbs' knock the body is in shorts, socks and tee shirt yet the face is in Gibbs' black field jacket pocket.

"Brad Thomas? Naval Criminal Investigative Service." Apprehensive eyes grow more so, Gibbs isn't interested in preliminaries. "You're under arrest for the murder of Major Jubilee Eastergaard."

'Brad' Bradley goes whiter in the face than his tee shirt.

x

"Who's that at the door?" a woman's voice calls from deeper within the apartment. In the living room, a boy and girl, both evidently less than five years old, lay face down upon the rug, their stares at the animated images on the screen unbroken.

"Federal Agents," Gibbs calls inward before Bradley can find his voice, "here to make an arrest for murder."

The announcement brings running from the bedroom an underwear-and-slip clad woman DiNozzo would gladly hire today as a double for Jessica Alba. "_What_?"

"Please don't do this," Bradley begs. "Not in front of my family."

Gibbs grabs his arm, turns him around toward DiNozzo, cuffs already prepared. "Your mercy's already used up."

"What's going on?" Alba's twin demands, trying to get in between Gibbs and Bradley. "What're you doing to my husband?"

Ziva yanks her out of the way. The children start crying at the violence directed toward their father. "Arresting him for murder," she declares as the boy and girl run to their mother, their arms wrapped about her legs effectively hobbling her.

"_Whose murder_?" she demends, unable to pry herself free of either Ziva or her crying children, unable to reach her husband between the two large men.

"The woman he threw from the 43rd floor the other morning."

Quasi-order shatters.

xxx

More than an hour later, Gibbs and DiNozzo are in Interrogation One while McGee performs the required observation from the adjoining room. Ziva and Michelle converse with a barely contained Mrs. Sophia Bradley in the Conference Room. The two children, no longer hysterical, are thoroughly distracted by Abby in her cave of wonders.

The two Investigators are gratified that Bradley hasn't wasted their time or his breath in denials. Abby, before taking charge of the youngsters, has already matched an electronic scan of Bradley's fingerprints with those found by Metro PD in Eastergaard's apartment and on her laptop.

He hadn't been identified in any searches because he's not wanted for anything other than the most spectacular and gory murder since the Millennium Debacle.

Thomas Bradley has already been advised of the hopelessness of denials. They have a witness who puts him in Eastergarten's apartment, his fingerprints are in every room and on the balcony where she'd gone over the rail, and his photograph had been obtained from her computer, in addition to 'a boatload,' as Abby had put it, 'of very steamy recollections'.

Agents have already picked up Susan Fordham, the witness from across the street, and will bring her to a line-up, but Gibbs considers that only icing on a very unappetizing cake. All he cares about is the answer to the one word that's been welling up in him for two days.

"Why?"

Thomas Bradley, hands cuffed before him, stares at the table – until Gibbs slams that table hard enough to dent it. "WHY?"

"I had no choice." It's the smallest voice Gibbs has heard in months.

"Why? What happened on that patio?"

Bradley looks up, his gaze lost in Gibbs' merciless stare.

o o o

The late night - close to early morning - is cool even with all his clothes on as Thomas Bradley stands on the patio outside Ju's apartment, listening to the night. He stares at the distant horizon, wonders how much longer his luck is going to hold out.

Dating - and more - a woman from his own building, had added dangers and therefore excitements his many other liaisons hadn't had, but even after months nothing can last forever, and it's time to cut loose before his luck fails.

Two weeks ago the doors had opened on 27 and Sophia, Paul and Amy were on the other side. Only his quick thinking, his ability to turn off lust and turn on domestic boredom with a bright face and affable smile had saved the day.

But it'd been close, he hadn't been due home for hours, but Sophia swallows lies better than Ju swallows... anything.

o

He hears the glass door behind him slide open. "Brad?"

He turns. Ju is coming out, clad again in the sensual underwear that'd started tonight's fire. The pink bra with its cut-out hearts let her erect nipples poke through. Whether they're erect now from sustained lust, the chill in the pre-dawn air, it doesn't matter, he wants to suck, to pinch them, to hear her lusty gasps again. He hadn't taken off her crotchless pink panties all night, had just worked through them.

"Are you okay?"

"Sure, Ju, I'm fine." But he can't make himself sound convincing even to himself so he's not fooling her. He can see it in her eyes. Backlit by the living room behind her, bathed in the moonlight, she's more shadows than visible but he knows her body so well.

She comes up beside him, leans her side to the rail, now visible from the living room. "Tell me, what's wrong?"

"Nothing."

o

Actually, he's been pressing his luck almost beyond breaking. He hadn't expected to start a relationship with a woman who lives 16 floors above, but once begun he'd found it impossible to stop. Being with her is intoxicating: the thrill of the risk; the spice of wild, hot sex; her belief that he loves her and the heady power over her that it gives him… he can't stop.

He's seeing her more and more frequently and some time, some day, the elevator door is going to open on 27 and Sophia's going to be on the other side -again - and he's not going to be as fast on the recovery and pretend everything's normal. He's going to get caught. It's just a matter of time and if he doesn't break this off he's going to get caught. But Ju's blinded love, her hot body – he can't stop.

"Tell me. I _know_ something's wrong."

"_Nothing's_ wrong." He turns away but she grabs his arm, turns him back.

"Don't lie to me. I can tell when you're lying."

'Oh, you can tell. How many times have I said 'I love you' and you bought it?'

o

"I'm not lying. There's absolutely nothing wrong." Why does she suddenly have to be perceptive? She's been blinded by love, believing his every word, his every assurance, every claim and lie that got him into her tight, wet pussy and _now_ she's starting to see through something?

"Honey, I want to help."

"You can't help. I mean there's nothing to help. Nothing wrong."

o

She's silent for a long moment, but only until she's sure she has his attention. Leaning against the rail, she looks up into his eyes and all he can see in hers is love.

"Brad, I mean it, whatever's happening, whatever's got you so stressed these past few days, we'll handle it. I'll handle it with you. I'll stay beside you through thick and thin, whatever it is I'm not going to leave your side."

"You have to." 'Oh _why _did I say that?'

"No. I won't. I don't know what's bothering you but I can help. You know I can help. Just tell me and I'll fix it, because I'm not leaving your side until it's fixed."

"You have to. You can't stay beside me forever."

"Twenty four seven, I'm not leaving you for one minute until whatever's bothering you is out in the open and fixed. I love you and I'm sticking with you forever."

"Forever?"

"Where you go, I go. Your problems are my problems. That's what love is. I'm not leaving you. Just let me help."

o

Looking into her eyes, he knows it's true. She'll stick with him right back down to his apartment, to Sophia and the kids.

He doesn't plan it, it just _happens_. It's as though his body's working to protect him. He pushes his left arm against her chest, bends her back hard over the rail, his right hand behind her leg, yank up, push over –

That scream. That _scream_ going away, going further away, further away … then it stops.

o o o

For the first time in years, Gibbs looks across an Interrogation table and feels sick. He decides he doesn't need to - doesn't want to - ask any more questions. The confession is on film, it'll play at his trial. There's no al Qaéda or Taliban threat here, no National Security issue, nothing more for NCIS to investigate.

He leaves DiNozzo behind to deal with Bradley. That's what SFA's are for.

x

When he opens the door, Gibbs catches a glimpse of a woman disappearing rapidly around the distant corner of the orange corridor. Ziva comes out of Observation One, followed by Michelle and Tim.

Ziva meets him at the open door where her words will carry into the Interrogation Room. "Sophia Bradley insisted upon seeing her husband, she would say nothing until she did. We were at an impasse. We brought her and she heard every word of the confession." She looks into the room at the prisoner. "She says 'plead guilty and ask for the maximum. Do not try to come home'."


	15. Epilogue

Epilogue

Tim McGee sits in his dark apartment, in his usually comfortable workstation chair, the black room lit only by the screen saver images that cycle through hundreds of UFP starships every 10 seconds. But, eyes closed, he doesn't see more than the changing intensities of lid-filtered light. The last time he did have his eyes open it was quarter after two but he doesn't want to go to bed. He's exhausted, but can't think of sleep.

Something stops the changing light from the monitor and he feels lips pressed to his, bare arms slip about his neck, and only then does he open his eyes, able only to see the tilted, shadowed face of his wife, backlit by changing intensities of starships he can no longer see.

x

Siobhan extends the kiss, content to hold it all the rest of the night. When she woke and found herself alone, she came out of the black bedroom to find her husband still fully clothed, illuminated by starships but staring at his eyelids instead. Bending left, she's well aware that her pink negligee, normally loose, fell completely away from her left breast, but she sees nothing of response in his eyes partially lit by the monitor light from behind her head. She wouldn't be surprised, and certainly wouldn't mind, if he reached for her breast. He reaches, but into his pocket, pulls something out and she breaks the kiss when she hears a rapid series of tones come from near his lap.

"Honey?"

He brings the phone to his ear but she's close enough to hear the ringing. Two weeks ago Jethro had interrupted the first moments of their lovemaking, but who could he possibly call at almost three in the morning. When a woman's sleep-drowned voice cuts the seventh ring she almost pulls away.

/Hello?/

"Sarah, it's Tim."

/What's wrong?/ There's no more sleep in her sister-in-law's voice and Siobhan's sure they're thinking the same thought. Why would Timmy call his sister at her college dorm _now_?

"Nothing. I was just wondering if you'd like to get together this morning. We could meet at Saint Mary the Virgin – Liturgy is at eleven – and then ... kind of ... spend the day together, the three of us."

x

/Tim, what's _wrong_?/

McGee looks at the close, shadowed emerald eyes of his wife and reads the same question spiced with as much worry.

"Nothing. It's just.…"

/_What_?/

"This morning I watched a man who had so much - so many people who loved him, literally _throw_ it all away. It just, well, made me want… need… to spend the day with my family."

He supposes both the women he loves are thinking the same thing, but Sarah says /I'll be there./

"Thank you. Go back to sleep."

/Zzzzzzz./

x

He closes the phone, but Shav looks more worried, not less.

"A chuisle?"

"It's the truth. I just…." Emotion almost undoes him, he has to bite it back or he can't whisper past it. "_Need_ you."

Her arms again about his neck, her lips press to his and he holds on.

o

Next Episode: **Rocky Road**: Marriage nears the breaking point, lives are shattered and rampant murder tears families apart.


End file.
